


The Constellations Never Fail

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, F/M, Inspired by The Walking Dead, OFBB 2016, Olicity Fic Bang 2016, Rebuilding Society, conflicting visions of how to deal with the harsh reality, zombies but not gore because yuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:53:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7917640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Volume One</b>: Oliver Queen has learned the precise kind of ruthlessness it takes to keep his friends and family alive in a post-apocalyptic world. Felicity Smoak has built a somewhat idyllic enclave smart enough to withstand almost anything from the living or the dead. When they meet, their respective philosophies on what it takes to keep moving in this brutal new world clash – but they’ll need to learn how to work together to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue:  At the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> **Thank yous** : Thanks to @andcreation and @kmart1885 for volunteering to beta and cheerlead as part of OFBB! Thanks to @writergirlwrites for the careful read and attention to detail, and huge thanks to @hannasus for the kicking around of ideas, and the general hand-holding in the making of this. Massive thanks to @fe-li-ci-ty for going way above and beyond with the artwork, creating not just a gorgeous statement piece, but ten stunning teaser images as well. I am blown away by the support.
> 
> **Note** : Volume One of this story will be posted before the season premiere (it’s a prologue + five chapters), and is a completed story arc – no cliffhanger! Volume Two has yet to be written, but will most likely be a late fall/early winter project, and will delve into more of this world. :)

 

 

Las Vegas fell fast, at the end of the world.

Barricaded for three days in the relative safety of the high roller room at Caesar’s, Donna Smoak heard a dozen different versions of how it started -- a strung out showgirl somewhere in Old Vegas overdosed and turned on her castmates; three members of a bachelor party drunkenly fell to their deaths and turned on their rescuers; a club promoter with a horrible flu came to work anyway and turned on the clubgoers.

The actual origin didn’t matter, though, because the infection, whatever it was, turned out to be unstoppable.

After all, drunk, high, exuberant tourists packed into clubs or moving in big, slow crowds through the streets presented easy targets. Not many people were alert enough to notice what was happening, never mind stop it. So the _turned_ had their pickings, and they tore through the Vegas crowds, until they were _all_ turned; until they milled aimlessly up and down the Strip, unbothered by the brutal heat.

Donna had a text from Felicity before her official shift was even over that day, all caps and emojis, yet exuding a kind of heart-warming _concern_ from her daughter that surprised Donna. She loved her daughter more than anything, but they had trouble understanding each other. They didn’t fight like they had when Felicity was a hurt, angry teenager, but they weren’t particularly close -- Felicity had left for college, and had never really come back.

Which is why Felicity’s obvious concern so surprised Donna. It also scared her a little bit -- it _must’ve_ been pretty bad if Felicity was so worried.

Tearfully, Donna smiled at the screen and responded that she was safe inside the casino. In fact, she considered herself _extra_ safe in the high roller room. After all, the casino wanted to make extra sure that its richest clients dropping the most money always felt _protected_ from the riffraff. By design, the high roller room was up a short flight of stairs and partitioned off from the main floor below by fancy-looking but _sturdy_ plate glass walls. Plus the entrance was guarded 24/7 by two security guards, and under constant video surveillance to boot.

Safest place in the casino other than the vault.

At the end of Donna’s shift that first day, her supervisor, Francine, announced that the casino was requesting the staff to stay put, because the police were asking everyone to stay inside so the _trouble_ could be handled. Except _trouble_ this time wasn’t just drunken tourists trying to crash the high roller room, or a drunken brawl on the main floor, or even a drunken, ill-advised attempt to rob the casino. (Though that didn’t happen nearly as much as Hollywood made you think, because the full force of a casino’s security detail was a _lot_ to contend with.)

Still, there wasn’t much Donna could do about things, so she changed out of her sparkly, scratchy cocktail waitress uniform and pulled on form-fitting jeans and a glittering pink top. She cozied up to Juan’s end of the bar, flirting with him just to pass the time. He was too young for her, probably, but a little fun never hurt anyone.

At first, the high roller room was a pretty decent place to be trapped, all things considered. Instead of the incessant dings, whirls, and chirps of slot machines, it room featured piped-in old Rat Pack standards meant to evoke the golden age of Vegas. The clientele -- mostly men, but a few women, too -- sat around burnished wood tables with fastidiously applied green felt, and drank expensive brandy and whisky and cognac, poured by Juan and Sammie.

Somehow, the air of rising panic on the main floor never quite made it through the guarded entrance to affect the high rollers.

But outside, the police responded with force -- rolling in on those big armored trucks that made Vegas look more like a war zone than an American city experiencing what was initially described as some kind of acute health crisis. Francine, Donna, and the other staffers watched some of it on the security cameras hidden behind the bar, exchanging incredulous looks over what Juan kept calling an _overreaction_. But Donna wasn’t a dumb woman, and she figured out pretty quick that this _trouble_ was more than just an infectious illness. Casinos were designed to lure people in, and then to block out the world, to trap and disorient gamblers, to provide a timeless experience until the house made its money. Casinos _never_ closed.

Until this.

And that’s when Donna started to realize that she was living through one of those big moments, one of those huge events that separated history into _before_ and _after_.

That’s when she called Felicity, savoring the familiar sound of her daughter talking a mile a minute. That’s when she decided that as soon as she could, she would head north so she could ride this all out with Felicity.

“When can you leave?” Felicity asked, the worry in her voice clear as a bell.

“Oh, honey, I’ll come north as soon as I can,” Donna answered, still so very certain the worst of this for Vegas would be over in a day or two, and she’d spend time with Felicity while the city recovered from this devastating, localized trauma. “But for now, I’m just gonna stay right here until the police come for us.”

The police never made it inside -- not that first day, not ever.

Left to their own devices, the staff in the high roller room decided to improve their security. They closed the doors between themselves and the main floor, leaving all the rest of the casino patrons to fend for themselves. The tourists out on the main floor huddled in small groups, circling cellphones to share updates and talking worriedly, the tension obvious in their bodies; the high rollers were concerned, but calm. It never occurred to Donna to wonder why.

Donna had never had much use for the news, but by the second day, all the TVs in the sports book were tuned to the cable news channels. She could see the footage but couldn’t hear the commentary through the plate glass windows. Still, the cellphone video and helicopter footage on CNN was enough to show that the “health crisis” wasn’t confined to just Vegas. Or just Nevada. When she managed to get service on her phone, she read articles that used euphemisms like “outbreak” and “affected areas,” and she saw references to a search for a vaccine.

When she saw articles with infographics showing red spots on all the major southwestern cities growing larger and larger, until they bled into each other and turned whole states, her chest felt tight and panicky, like she couldn’t draw a full breath. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring those terrifying maps, and she tried her best to calm down. The only thing that brought her some solace was that the northwest was safe -- _Felicity_ was safe.

Donna refused to let herself think the words _so far_ ; instead, she checked Felicity’s area compulsively, making sure the northwest stayed clear. Making sure Felicity would stay _safe_ from this.

Meanwhile, less than a day into their impromptu decision to shelter in the high roller room, the situation outside of the plate glass deteriorated into screams and blood and horrible, awful things that Donna would never been able to forget witnessing. They had a front row seat to the unimaginable horrors, to people doing unspeakable things to each other.

Donna and Sammie and Juan cried. Francine turned ghostly pale. Every person in the high roller room had to turn away. They ended up in small groups, holding hands in stunned silence, the screams of the dying interspersed with Sinatra’s _My Kind of Town_.

It was over quickly out there on the main floor, leaving the high roller room castaways dazed, and the sole survivors in the whole casino, as far as they could tell. Because the scope of everything happening was _unthinkable_ , they started to organize and plan and try their best to make the room safer; _impenetrable_. They were still thinking short term, though -- a couple of days, a week at most.

They were still thinking rescue teams would come for them.

Once they upended the heavy wooden gaming tables and pushed them up against the doors and the plate glass to reinforce barricades, Donna peeked between the tables to see the TVs. The cable news stations were still broadcasting, but the anchors looked disheveled and stressed and _afraid_ , like maybe they were holed up in their studios, trapped where they were when this all started the same way Donna was. The news anchors were reporting lost connections with entire cities -- Phoenix, Reno, San Diego -- as the infection continued to move fast. The implications were staggering, and Donna’s gaze returned again and again to the turned ambling around the main casino floor. There were no survivors out there, no regular, live humans in the whole place that Donna could see.

That was when she began to wonder, _Is this what the world is like now_?

They were everywhere -- the _turned_. Milky eyes. Snapping jaws. Apparently drawn to lights and sounds. On the main casino floor, that meant the turned moved from slot machine to slot machine, gnawing on metal and plastic before moving on to the next flashing light or whirring sound. From what Donna could tell, the turned were... well, they were _mindless_.

Some of them had bad wounds; wounds they couldn’t possibly survive, but they were still on their feet, still shuffling. They weren’t alive, but somehow they weren’t fully dead either.

The heavy dread in Donna’s chest deepened when she stopped thinking of them as infected or _turned_ and started thinking of them as... well, as the _walking dead_.

Every single person -- _former_ person -- that Donna could see on the main floor was dead. Her fellow waitresses in tatters of their familiar uniforms, the security guards with weapons dangling uselessly from their belts, tourists in garishly bright clothes -- all of them moved with the same unsteady gait.

“They’re all dead,” she whispered into her hands, too terrified by the realization to voice it any louder.

Donna wasn’t sure if _anyone_ was left alive in Vegas other than the people in the room with her. She hid in the bathroom for an hour, quietly breaking down -- sobbing into her hands, half-convinced she was having a heart attack because her pulse was so loud and frantic in her ears.

When she got herself back under control, she texted Felicity _Are you still safe, baby girl?_ Because Donna couldn’t see enough of the TVs to understand where or how this _plague_ ended. _If_ it ended. She wanted to live. She’d never been more clear on that than in these awful hours trapped in place, but temporarily safe from the horrors of walking death. She wanted to live, and see her daughter. She wanted to make up for not always being the mother that her bright, smart baby girl had needed growing up.

But the end of the world had a way of bringing her blinding clarity, and Donna knew that if she had to die, she could accept it as long as she knew her daughter was safe.

She gripped that bright pink phone in her hands, willing Felicity to respond quickly to her message. She did, replying: _Please come north. No planes or trains running in the SW, but you can still get on a bus, maybe._

Getting on a bus meant getting out of the high roller room; out of the casino. And the last overhead footage Donna had seen of Vegas showed that the Strip was teeming with the turned. She might be able to get to the employees’ entrance, but she couldn’t see a way out of the city.

But the rich got out. Of _course_ they did.

Donna had worked the high roller tables for years. She knew these men -- and they _were_ mostly men. She’d befriended them, catered to them. She even genuinely liked some of them, and she knew they liked her. They tipped generously. They brought her gifts. They flirted.

And when Vegas fell, they spent a day and a half trapped right alongside Donna, her fellow cocktail waitresses, the cooks and bartenders, plus a handful of security guards. For a few hours, they all became a big, strange team regardless of their backgrounds, bonded by fear and determination, working to keep each other safe. Until Donna woke after a few hours’ nap against the back wall and learned that the high-rollers had fled in their helicopters. They’d taken the two strongest security guards with them, no doubt to help them get to the roof safely.

The rich got out, but Donna and nearly a dozen other _non-rich_ people were stranded in a dead casino, in a dying city, filled with the turned. They told each other they’d ride it out right there in that small room at Caesar’s. They had food enough to last them at least a while longer. They had running water, and toilets. They even rigged up a makeshift shower at the back of the small prep kitchen.

But Donna was pretty sure they all knew their odds were _terrible_.

Still, she tried to stay positive. She sent Felicity upbeat selfies -- vamping with _survivor chic_ braids in her hair; smiling while holding a heavy pour gin and tonic, captioning it _a toast to the end of the world_ ; posing with Francine, who used to let a teenaged Felicity do her homework at the bar near the back even though she was too young to be on the floor.

Felicity responded the same way each time: _Come north. I’ll meet you halfway. Mom, PLEASE._

And every time, Donna wrote back: _Do not leave where you are. You are safe, and you will stay safe. I’ll come to you._

Donna knew it was probably a lie. Well, not a _lie_ exactly -- she had every intention of trying to get to Felicity. She just had no idea how she and her fellow survivors could get through teeming hordes of the dead. She had no idea how she’d make it hundreds and hundreds of miles north.

Whenever Donna suggested getting out, Francine would point towards the casino floor, towards the TV showing footage of a world gone mad, and ask, “Where’s better than here? Where can we _get to_ that’s better than here?”

It was an argument Donna couldn’t win -- not when they still had food and water and shelter.

Electricity went out on the fifth day.

They cooked themselves a large meal out of all the things that would spoil without refrigeration, and drank entirely too many bottles of wine. Donna didn’t realize it until the next morning, but they’d basically thrown a wake -- for themselves, for each other, maybe for the world at large.

It was their last night in the casino.

The large building heated up quickly under the desert sun, and the stench of the turned and of the slaughtered -- it was overpowering without industrial grade HVAC systems running. Donna, Francine, and the others gathered supplies and their nerve, following a plan that would almost surely lead to disaster -- the laundry chute, the golf carts, and getting _away_ from the turned and the dead.

Nine people left the high roller room that day; four people made it. Donna cried for Francine, for Tyrone, for Luis and Rosa and Jenny.

Somehow, the four survivors got out of the city center on the golf cart, very narrowly avoiding the dead as they headed west. They didn’t make it very far -- on the second day, the National Guard had cordoned off the city with guarded fences topped by razor wire. _Quarantine_ , the guy with the gun said, _it’s temporary._

But Donna didn’t like the look on his face when he said it. She’d seen all the chatter about the search for a vaccine, but _nothing_ about any successes. And it didn’t escape her attention that the members of the Guard she could see were just as wide-eyed and panicky as the casino refugees.

So they retreated a couple blocks into a scraggly neighborhood, found a small and worn little house that seemed empty -- tan stucco with dirty windows, and a dusty old Cadillac parked in the garage. They broke in for shelter; to regroup. They took showers, _real_ showers, and pulled on the clothes of strangers before sleeping on couches and beds. Donna swapped out her platform sandals for a slightly-too-big pair of sneakers, but refused to wonder what had happened to the people who’d lived in the house.

Donna’s cellphone died early on the sixth day. The last text from Felicity read, _Get water, get out of the city, and head north. Love you._

The last text Donna ever sent said: _I am looking for a way out. I love you so much, baby girl. Stay safe._ But somewhere deep down, Donna knew she would never see her daughter again. The thought nearly brought her to her knees.

When she and the others left the house in the homeowner’s old car, Donna tucked her cellphone in her back pocket as a talisman, and carried a shovel as a weapon.

It was close, but they made it out of Vegas by driving straight through the fence at an area south of the city that was mostly unguarded. She wondered whether the Guard would come after them for breaking “quarantine,” but aside from some angry shouts and a burst of gunfire that made her shriek but didn’t hit them, they had no indications that anyone was following them.

Outside Vegas was worse in some ways. Abandoned cars were lined up near gas stations, all of which were out of gas. The dead wandered in aimless packs, attracted by the noise of the car as Donna’s group tried very hard to stay well clear. The Cadillac was much safer than the golf cart, but none of them had any interest in close encounters.

They drove through the desert, heading south -- the wrong way for Donna, whose goal was still to find her daughter up north. But they were trying to get _away_ first -- from the National Guard and from the packs of the dead. When they were sure they were safely out of the crosshairs, only then would they choose a destination.

Donna was sure she could convince them to go to Felicity, and she started to let herself hope that she was wrong, that they _could_ make it up north. Her daughter was a certified genius. If _anyone_ could think their way out of a mess like this, it’d be her daughter.

Donna would convince them.

When the Cadillac ran out of gas, they got out and walked in the blistering heat, sweaty and miserable, with their eyes peeled for the dead. It was easier out in the open like this -- they had good sightlines, so they could avoid the dead. None of them were well-trained in any kind of self-defense, and they were carrying only makeshift weapons -- baseball bats, shovels, and Sammie had only managed to find a rake.

They trudged on, stopping only briefly for water breaks, and to eat the food they’d stuffed in their bags and backpacks. Donna’s ill-fitting sneakers rubbed blisters into her heels, and she was limping by hour four.

When night fell, they decided to sleep in shifts, so that the dead couldn’t come upon them unawares. Donna took first watch, shivering a little as she split her attention between the dark horizon and the pink plastic phone cradled in her hands. It was dead, of course, but it was also her last link to her Felicity. She tried to blink back tears at the thought of her daughter and tipped her head back. The density of glittering stars in the dark sky above left her breathless -- she lived in Vegas’s light pollution her whole life; it had been _years_ since she’d seen anything like this display.

It was overwhelming, and all she could do was smile up at the stars, searching among the diamonds for any familiar shapes. The constellations -- Felicity would probably remember all of their names.

“I miss you, baby girl,” she muttered to the sky, hoping her daughter was safe under these same stars.

Donna finished her shift after midnight and woke Jerry. She took off the sneakers to let her blisters breathe in the cool night air, then curled herself into a ball. She didn’t have a blanket or a pillow, but the dirty old backpack was at least less rocky and uneven than the ground, and provided her some sort of cushioning when she smushed it under her head. She expected to be up for a while as gory images of the casino floor replayed in her imagination, but she must have underestimated how exhausted she was -- she dropped off quickly.

Donna slept deeply and without dreams until a scream woke her some undetermined amount of time later.

She was disoriented in the dark, confused, and so, so tired. By the time the nightmarish scene around her resolved itself into this new grotesque reality, it was too late.

Donna Smoak died on a Tuesday night, less than five miles north of Primm, Nevada.

 

END PROLOGUE


	2. Chapter One:  Sagitta

 

**Three Years Later**

 

Oliver runs.

His cracked ribs makes every step, every _breath_  agony, but when he rounds the corner of the long slaughterhouse building and sees the chaos of a desperate fight half-illuminated by floodlights, he puts on an extra, stubborn burst of speed.

Because now he can see his people, his _family_  fighting for their lives in what used to be a cattle pen. He’s too far away to know for sure if they’re all there, if they’re all _alive_ , and the not-knowing is worse than his fucking ribs.

It’s too dark and still too far, but Oliver is pretty sure there are other people fighting alongside his family; it must be some of their fellow captives in this hellish place. The impromptu team up helps, but even from a distance, Oliver can tell they’re still outnumbered by the assholes who’d imprisoned them all in the first place. Oliver and his people -- minus Nyssa, Lyla, and little Sola, thank God -- have been locked up for days with some strangers, seeing only the same seven guards, so he’s surprised to see how _many_  of those fuckers there actually are. Looks like maybe two dozen of those sick assholes are circling his people, herding them back towards the freezers.

His people, his _family_  are surrounded, trapped, and fighting on all sides -- they’re not going to win that way, and Oliver pushes himself harder. He _has_  to get there and help, no matter how badly his ribs protest.

Something’s on fire off to the side -- one of the slaughterhouses, maybe. Oliver can’t spare the energy to confirm; all he can hear is the pounding of his heart and the roar and hiss of the flames. He clenches the metal in his hands tighter, until the edges dig into his palms, and tries to run even faster despite the piercing pain in his chest.

The fight moves like a living thing, twisting and contracting. It’s hard to see in the eerie half-light, but Oliver thinks his people and the maybe half a dozen strangers fighting with them are losing ground. He spots Tommy, and Helena, then loses sight of them in the whirling chaos.

He doesn’t know what happened after he was dragged away or exactly how Dig and Thea and the others got out of those goddamn freezers, but he suspects his group put their half-baked escape plan into effect. Clearly, it didn’t work as well as they’d hoped, but at least his family is out and fighting the assholes trying to trap them back into captivity, herd them to an early death so they can be served up as _nourishment_  for the sick fuckers that built this place.

The mass of bodies shifts, and there’s just enough light for Oliver to see his son, still standing, still _breathing_ , with Oliver’s people and even a couple strangers ringed protectively around the boy. But there’s no time for relief, not now -- he needs to join the fight, _win_ the fight, save his people.

Oliver already killed three men to escape that filthy, blood-stained train car, where they’d taken him to prepare him for the slaughter. Intuitively, he’d understood why they’d chosen _him_  to drag away first -- kill the group’s leader, and that quells a lot of resistance from the rest.

Except they’d underestimated him badly, and now there are three fewer of these assholes and Oliver’s got two rusty, jagged pieces of metal to use as knives to kill the rest.

Oliver’s thirty yards away, closing fast, ignoring the sharp protest of his ribs. The heat and the angry snap of flames add a surreal soundtrack, mostly drowning out the sounds of the large-scale fight in front of him and lending a strange, orange glow to everything.

It’s clear from the ferocity of the fight that those sick fucks had also underestimated just what three years wandering out in a world gone mad has done for Oliver’s group. They’re ruthless and practiced, fighting together as a team, taking out as many of these assholes as they can to end this, because they all understand the stakes -- even his nine-year-old son.

It’s hard to see details from a distance in the dark and at a dead run, but Oliver’s pretty sure Dig and Tommy are fighting without weapons, while Thea appears to be wielding some sort of pipe. There are others in the fight -- Barry and Helena and Sebastian, plus a few other bedraggled people who’d had the misfortune to stumble upon this place and get got. They’re holding their own, mostly because the assholes running this shithole are largely unarmed, relying on traps and tricks and keeping their captives locked up and starving.

Twenty yards. Ten.

Oliver’s people are brawlers, but they haven’t eaten in nearly two days, and have only had a bit of water -- there’s no way they can keep this up much longer.

And this isn’t the kind of fight that ends with a grudging truce.

This is a fight that needs to be won, or it’s _lost._  And lost means they’re all dead, these people that Oliver has fought beside, has fought for. These people who’ve saved his life more than once, whose lives he’s saved, whose lives he’s _responsible_  for.

Oliver will not allow a loss. Not now. Not ever.

Oliver stabs the first person he reaches, quick and fatal, then turns for more. He fights with precision, fury and desperation guiding him as he wields the makeshift blades with deadly force. His ribs protest fiercely, and the rough edges of the metal cuts his hands up, but he cannot stop.

The makeshift weapons grows slick with blood, and he loses one of the metal pieces. He’s not going to be able to ignore his own injuries for much longer, but he will keep going until it’s done. There are no choices here, no options. It’s kill or be killed, and he knows his group needs his particular brand of vicious determination to survive this.

Because this... _this_  shithole is about as bad as it gets.

Oliver knows there’s not much left to live for; there’s not much left in the world but hunger and the constant threat of death. Like the walking corpses that overran the world weren’t enough to contend with, _these_  evil fuckers lost the last traces of their humanity and turned to cannibalism.

Oliver lets out a roar as he gets hold of another cannibal, yanking the man in close, grunting as elbows and fists slam into his damaged ribs. Ignoring the sharp flash of pain, Oliver shifts, using his hard-earned bulk to get the guy into position. Then he snaps the other man’s neck and lets the body drop to the ground by his feet, scanning for more, checking on William.

His nine-year-old son is still in the middle, protected by Dig and Thea and Tommy and a petite blonde woman Oliver doesn’t recognize. William’s small body is alert, his eyes open for an opportunity to run. Oliver fucking _hates_  that this is the world his son is growing up in, that the boy has had to learn precisely what to do in a life-or-death fight, but he’s also proud as hell of William for handling himself.

They’re making progress, taking down more and more of those assholes, blood mixing with the dirt at their feet. Oliver doesn’t think, doesn’t reason, he just _reacts_.

He fights.

He kills.

And then there are only two of those motherfuckers left: a woman lying on the ground bleeding out from what Oliver can tell is a fatal wound, and a man cowering on his knees beside the twisted body of one of his fellow cannibals. “Please,” he begs. “No, please, wait, don’t kill me.”

There’s a long moment of stillness as Oliver’s friends and family catch their breath and check each other for injuries. Four of the people fighting alongside them gravitate towards each other, doing the same, while another couple strangers turn and run for the fences, for the freedom beyond. Dig and Oliver hold their makeshift weapons in the male cannibal’s face, keeping him in place.

“Dad?” William asks, his voice surprisingly steady, considering he’s standing in a ring of carnage after being held prisoner for days.

“You okay, bud?” Oliver demands, still breathing hard, every movement a small agony thanks to his ribs. When his son doesn’t answer, Oliver turns his head to lay eyes on him. “William?”

He’s surprised to see the petite blonde is still beside William, her hand resting on his shoulder, as if she’s ready to push him behind her at the first sign of a threat. And she’s staring up at Oliver -- _glaring_  at him, if he’s being accurate -- like he just might be one.

Oliver scans her form quickly, evaluating her; she’s wearing clothes that are surprisingly clean and well-maintained, missing the accumulated sweat stains, unpatched rips, and generally ragged quality the rest of them have. Oliver narrows his eyes, somewhere between curious and suspicious, and looks at her a little more closely -- she’s breathing hard, eyes wide behind her glasses, cheeks flushed from exertion, her dirty blonde hair loose and wavy around her shoulders.

It occurs to him as their gazes lock that she’s beautiful.

“I’m okay,” William says, breaking the odd moment of _awareness_  between Oliver and this strange woman. Oliver shifts his attention to his son, scanning him for injuries, but he appears unharmed. He’s a serious boy. Oliver has only known him in _this_  world, in this chaos, so he has no idea whether his son had been a carefree child once, _before_. But three years in close quarters, three years in life-or-death situations on a regular basis has taught Oliver how to read his son. And right now, William is okay. He’s a little scared, in need of a little reassurance after seeing his father dragged away to be killed and eaten, but he’s okay.

“Everything’s gonna be fine, William,” Oliver says, then turns back to the cowering cannibal.

“Please, _please_ , don’t kill me,” the man begs, his hands shaking as he lifts them towards Oliver in supplication. “Please, I don’t--”

Oliver stabs him, right in the chest, right in the heart.

& & &

Felicity jumps back, away from the brutality on full display before her. She pulls the little boy -- William -- with her, trying to shield him from the sight. “What’d you do _that_  for?” she demands of the gargantuan man who’d appeared in the middle of the fight. She’s angry and appalled, but her voice comes out higher and little more unsteady than she’d like, all things considered. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

The murder-y guy stares at her, a strange mix of ruggedly handsome and _terrifying_ -slash-possibly sociopathic, what with the blood-soaked piece of metal he’s holding that he just used to kill a bunch of people.

Most of whom were, admittedly, sociopathic themselves, and actively trying to kill the rest of the group standing around her right now, in varying stages of exhaustion, hunger, and fear. But still. Felicity is definitely not a fan of the scruffy-faced guy’s problem-solving skills.

“We don’t have jails,” Scruffy Guy answers curtly.

The grim practicality of that statement hits Felicity hard, slicing right through her shock and indignation, and she has to turn away. Because he’s not wrong. She refuses to believe that he’s _right_  as an overall guiding principle, but she can’t seem to muster a strong argument to bolster her _no killing the living_  argument at the moment, since this particular group of the living had been hell bent on not just killing but _eating_  them.

So gross. She shudders, trying really, _really_ hard not to remember the smell of meat cooking that had wafted through the air the day she, Iris, Quentin, and Ray were trapped and frogmarched into this place. When she’d caught a glimpse of exactly what kind of meat their captors were cooking, she’d vomited right there, earning herself an angry knee to the midsection from one of the cannibals.

They were monsters, no doubt, and Felicity has no real interest in defending them as _good_. But they are at the very least _alive_  -- or at least they _were_ alive before Scruffy Guy’s systematic killing of all of them. And as far as Felicity can tell, the living are very, very outnumbered by the dead these days. Things are awful and hard and scary, but she believes in the sanctity of human life, never more so than now, in this grim _after_  they’ve been living for three years.

William slips out of her grip, jarring her from her thoughts too late to hold him back. He runs to the man’s side, looking up at Scruffy Guy, not even seeming to notice the spatters of blood all over the man’s dirty, faded blue shirt. “Are you okay, Dad?”

Felicity restrains her instinct to shield William from his own father.

Then the strangest thing happens -- when Scruffy Guy looks down at his son, he stops glowering and glaring. And he _smiles_.

Felicity blinks.

The man’s smile is small and brief, but genuine, and does really good things for his face, even _with_  the mountain man beard and the unkempt hair hanging in his face. More importantly, Felicity feels at least a little bit of the terror in her chest ease. She’s _pretty_  sure there’s some humanity left within Scruffy Guy, and that leaves her fairly confident that he won’t just murder her or Iris or Ray or Quentin for kicks.

“Felicity?” Ray prompts from somewhere behind her, and the rest of the world comes back to her in a jolt.

She glances around, looking past the loose semicircle of survivors (and pointedly _not_  looking at the scattered bodies of the cannibals) to take stock of their overall situation now that the immediate threat has passed. Two of the pig slaughterhouses in this compound are on fire, and the place is clearly beyond saving. As far as Felicity can tell, most if not all of the cannibals that had held her and three of her people captive are dead, but she can’t say for sure there’s not another dozen or more elsewhere on the grounds of this compound. All things considered, she figures retreat is the better part of valor, and turns to find her people.

There’s blood on Quentin’s cheek and on his faded plaid shirt. Iris is shaking a little bit, her arms crossed protectively as she watches the other, considerably larger, and so much _deadlier_  group with a mixture of awe and fear. Ray is wrapping a large gash on his arm, his attention bouncing from his wound to Felicity to the others and back again.

“Guys?” Felicity prompts, tugging on Iris’s elbow to get her moving. “We need to go.”

Scruffy Guy nods in agreement, glancing around. “Anyone need medical attention before we go?” he asks. Felicity’s not sure why she’s surprised by the question -- after a moment, she surmises it’s probably grounded in practicality and not an abundance of caring and empathy.

Still -- at least he’d asked.

There’s a muted collection of answers in the negative, and he nods, turning away.

But a tall, thin white man with a bashful manner and a vaguely nauseated expression on his face steps closer to Ray and comments, “Pretty sure that needs stitches.”

Ray glances down at his wound and then grins, his manner as irrepressible as ever, even after very narrowly escaping being led to the slaughter. “We’ve got a doctor back home who can take a look. Thanks, uh…?”

“Barry,” says the thin man with a shrug. “You’re still bleeding.”

“There’s no time,” interjects the very tall, very broad-chested black man watching the interchange from across the small semicircle of survivors. He turns to Scruffy Guy, and his expression falters, just a bit. “We need to find them, Oliver. We need to go _now_.”

 _Oliver_ , she thinks to herself, before letting herself puzzle over the other man’s strange urgency.

“Are you from the area?” Felicity asks, stepping a little closer to Oliver and William and the broad man with the bulging biceps.

Three matching wary expressions turn her way. “Why do you ask?” Oliver demands, his voice low and vaguely threatening. It makes Felicity wonder whether she should reconsider the _probably won’t murder me_  thing.

She opens her mouth to answer, but Ray steps up close behind her and says, “We live not too far from here,” he answers, then he frowns. “I mean, I _think_. We were caught in a trap not more than half a day’s walk from home, and it didn’t take more than four hours to get here, so…” He trails off a little uncertainly, then smiles brightly. “So if you’re looking for something specific, we could probably help you find it. You know, since you helped us out here.”

Felicity takes a step backwards, nearly colliding with Ray’s chest, trying to get him to _stop talking_. Because she is typically of the opinion that any and all of the living should be welcome in Starling, but she also just watched Oliver kill a man, sort of in cold blood, and she’s not quite sure about inviting that kind of person into their home.

Oliver and the man Felicity has decided to call Biceps exchange a long look. Then Biceps meets Felicity’s gaze and says, “We’re looking for Starling.”

Felicity hopes she’s managed to cover her reaction to this news, but from the way Oliver’s eyes narrow just a bit, she’s pretty sure she failed. “You’ve heard of Starling?” she asked carefully.

Biceps takes three steps, towering over her, but he somehow doesn’t seem at all threatening like his friend Oliver, Felicity decides. Biceps seems... _kind_ , and a little bit desperate. “My wife and daughter headed for Starling with another of our friends,” he says, his tone urgent. “I need to find them.”

Felicity is surprised, to say the least. Not that someone would try for Starling -- they get stragglers and small groups a couple times a month, people who’ve been wandering out in the world _after_ ; people who are in desperate need of safety. No, Felicity is surprised to hear that a family that has made it through a few years of this had willingly split up. It’s not like they can just text each other a meetup spot.

God, she misses her cellphone. She misses _the internet_.

Which is… really not the point. “Why didn’t you go with them?” she asks.

Biceps grimaces, looking away from her and swallowing hard. Before he can answer, Oliver steps up next to him, and says, “That’s none of your business.” And _his_  version of towering over her _is_  a little intimidating. It pisses her off, if she’s being honest, that he’s even trying that with her. Because he has no reason to distrust her, to try to make her cower and bow to his will.

The spark of anger straightens her spine and she lifts her chin, not giving a single inch. “I know where Starling is,” she answers, glaring up at him. “But I need your friend to answer a couple questions before I tell him anything else.” She tilts her head, adding, “Unless you’re planning to _murder_  the information out of me.”

Oliver’s jaw tightens and he’s glowering again. “I’m not a murderer,” he grits out.

Felicity raises her eyebrows, sarcasm bleeding from her tone, “Tell that to the guy begging for his life. Oh, wait, you can’t, because he’s dead.”

“These people were _cannibals_ ,” he shoots back, arms crossing, and, _wow_ , his arms are nearly as ridiculous as Biceps’. “They needed to be stopped. And I’m sure as hell not going to leave them alive so they can kill and _eat_ the _next_  group that stumbles into their snares.”

Felicity blinks. Because -- okay, that is a reasonable point here out in the world; _loathsome_ , but reasonable. And she _hates_  that it’s at least defensible. She hates every last thing about the world outside of Starling, if she’s being honest, and she regrets every second she’s spent outside the walls.

Starling has a lot to recommend it, but it definitely doesn’t have a jail -- though now that he’s got her thinking about it, she just might have one built. More importantly, what Starling _does_  have is a collection of people who have cast their lots in together to create something approximating what the world was like _before_.

Before the dead outnumbered the living; before the dead roamed the world in packs, in _hordes_ , feasting on the living.

Before the living started to turn on each other.

They’re trying to rebuild what’s been lost, and she’s just not convinced a ruthless pack of _killers_  is the right choice to welcome into their sanctuary. Into their _society_.

“Listen, Felicity, is it?” Biceps asks, dipping his chin to meet her gaze directly. “My name is John Diggle, and my wife’s name is Lyla. We have a little girl -- she’s two and a half. Lyla and another one of our best fighters, Nyssa, they took Sola to find Starling. We heard about Starling, that maybe it was a safe place, but we also heard about this place. We wanted to evaluate our options, then meet back up, but we ended up stuck.”

“In here,” Felicity surmises. She glances over at Quentin and Iris, wanting to gauge their response. Because Felicity and the others hadn’t heard a _thing_ about Union Station before they were caught in a trap. Like, an _actual_  trap, dug into the ground and covered with leaves and sticks. “What do you mean, you heard about this place?”

“There are signs,” Diggle answers, gesturing in a direction that Felicity supposes might be south. She’s really not great at some of the more important survival skills, which is why Quentin had insisted on accompanying her on their failed supply run in the first place. “Along the roads back there, suggesting Union Station might be a sanctuary.” He grimaces. “Says they have food.”

Felicity resists the urge to gag, but _just_  barely. “Yuck,” she comments, her nose wrinkled in distaste.

Diggle actually huffs a laugh. “Yeah. But we weren’t sure which option was better.”

“So you split up,” Felicity surmises. “But why--?”

“Starling’s just a rumor,” Oliver interrupts brusquely. “Rumors of safe havens are popular these days.” He watches her closely, and she _knows_ he’s guessed she has more information about Starling than she’s shared thus far. “We don’t trust rumors; we investigate before we make a decision.”

“Starling’s real,” Iris interjects. “It’s a walled compound -- neighborhood, really. There are houses.” She lets her gaze flick from person to person. “Running water,” she adds. “ _Showers_.” Iris pauses, waiting for Felicity’s nod of approval before she adds, “We’re from Starling. We can bring you there.”

A small, sprightly woman with her hair cut into a surprisingly stylish (and probably quite practical) bob drops the length of pipe she’s been holding and steps closer. “Seriously? You’re from Starling?” She gives Felicity and Iris an exasperated look. “Why are we still standing here, then? Let’s go.”

“Thea,” Oliver warns.

Thea lifts her chin. “Ollie, I need a bath. And a couple night’s sleep without a four-hour guard shift thrown in.”

Felicity watches their interaction with interest, trying to understand the dynamics of this larger, more experienced group.

“We need to find Lyla and Sola and Nyssa,” Oliver argues.

“Yes,” Thea says, stepping right up to Oliver without an ounce of fear. “But we need this, too. We need something _good_. It’s been three _years_  of this, and nearly two since--” She stops short, glancing at Felicity and Iris, seemingly choosing her words carefully. “We haven’t stopped moving since the cabin, Ollie, not once.”

Felicity stays quiet, because she can see Oliver struggling with his reservations, and she has plenty of her own. Starling takes people in, sure, but they mostly see terrified, shell-shocked survivors, fleeing the worst. Oliver’s group strikes her more as a well-oiled machine; like an army unit, accustomed to battle and to doing things _their_  way. And based on their brief interactions, Felicity has seen enough to know that _their_  way and the way things are done in Starling are going to clash.

But at the end of the day, Oliver, Diggle, Thea, and the others -- they’re _alive_ , and that’s enough for her to take a chance on them.

When Oliver looks over at her, they watch each other for a long, measured moment, before he jerks a nod. “We’ll check it out,” he says, turning back to Thea. “That’s all I can promise.”

Thea flings her arms around Oliver. “This is going to be good, Ollie,” she says. Then she turns a charming grin to Felicity and Iris. “Which way?”

“Oh,” Felicity frowns, turning to Quentin. “I don’t actually know. Quentin?”

Quentin gives her that pursed-lips-of-disapproval look. “Felicity, you need to learn how to read the land if you’re gonna be out here.”

“I don’t _want_  to be out here,” she counters cheerfully. But she glances up, trying to remember how to find the north star. All she sees are hundreds of tiny pinlights in the navy sky, varying intensities, nothing that looks at all familiar. She’s never been able to recognize constellations other than the Big Dipper -- _remember_ them and their mythical origins, yes; find them in the night sky, not so much. “That’s north, right?” she guesses, pointing past him.

Quentin merely sighs, reaching for her arm and reorienting it about 120 degrees.

Which also turns her back to face the other group, many of whom are watching her with amused looks on their faces. Except Oliver, who just stares at her stoically.

She sobers a bit under his judge-y gaze. “We’ll bring you to Starling with us,” Felicity says, mostly to Oliver. “Under one condition,” she adds, trying her hardest to ignore the relief and gratitude on Diggle’s face. She locks gazes with Oliver. “No killing.”

& & &

Once outside the fences of the still-burning slaughterhouse compound, Oliver leads the group southwest, back around to where they’d hid their heavier weaponry before heading into Union Station. Unlike Felicity’s group, who’d been trapped out in the world, Oliver and the others had walked right up to the gates and knocked. They’d been greeted warmly and fed -- _thankfully_ , none of them had been offered any meat, just basic bread and fruit.

The food had been drugged, and they’d woken up locked in the non-functioning meat freezers, stripped of their knives, groggy, and, at least in Oliver’s case, _incredibly_  pissed off. He should’ve trusted his instincts -- nothing in this world is what it seems, and there’s no such thing as kindness to strangers.

It’s difficult to locate their stash of heavier weaponry and supplies in the dark, and a time-consuming pain in the ass to dig everything back up using sticks and their bare hands. Surprisingly, the Starling folks chip in with little protest. Oliver’s ribs are still screaming -- they’re cracked, at least, and he needs to wrap them, but he can’t justify the time until they put good distance between themselves and Union Station. He can’t be sure they killed all the cannibals, and he’s not interested in a repeat performance of that brawl.

When they finally unearth the large duffel, Tommy and Helena and Sebastian pull out three canteens and a pack of energy bars, which they pass around. None of them have eaten since getting tossed in the freezers at the slaughterhouse, and they tear through a bar apiece in no time. The shared food and water seems to lift everyone’s spirits.

Thea, who’d called him a paranoid jerk for making them bury half of their weapons and most of their supplies before going into Union Station, bumps his arm with her shoulder. “This was smart, Ollie. You _occasionally_  have good ideas.”

In less serious circumstances, he might’ve laughed and teased her back.

Instead, he grunts and begins passing around sharpened sticks, large hunting knives, and two crossbows. Felicity steps back, eyes wide. The doubt and mistrust is clear on her face, even in the faint moonlight. He wonders briefly what she’d think if they hadn’t sent their two guns and twelve remaining bullets with Lyla, Sola, and Nyssa.

Oliver settles his quiver on his back and stands, bow in hand. “Now we’re ready,” he declares, and, yes, it’s a little bit directed at the tiny blonde with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. Does she really think it’s safe to wander out in the world _unarmed_?

Felicity stares right back at him, not giving an inch. “Ready for all the not-killing with all of those weapons?”

He barely suppresses the flash of irritation. He’s exhausted and in pain and there’s no time to argue with her about this. Because he’s _responsible_  for these people, and he will keep them safe, and that means being ready, willing, and able to neutralize threats. _And_  it means making sure they’re all prepared to do the same. So he pulls the sheathed hunting knife from where it’s hooked on his belt and holds it out to Felicity, handle first. “For the walkers,” he explains.

After a long moment, she relents, accepting the weapon, which looks almost comically large in her small hands. “Walkers you can kill all you want,” she answers, shifting the sheathed knife gingerly so she can clip it to her waistband. “It’s killing the _living_  that I have a problem with.”

“We should get moving,” Oliver says, turning away from her, looking to Quentin, who seems to be the Starlinger with the most common sense. Because arguing their philosophical differences over what it takes to survive out here is just a waste of time. “Northwest?”

“Yeah,” Quentin answers gruffly, and pulls out a compass before setting off. They move quietly through the dark, everyone on alert for walkers or malevolent humans.

Oliver gravitates to the back of the group where he can watch over everyone. Walking point is more dangerous, which is why he usually takes that. But they’re with virtual strangers, and he needs to keep his eye on William, and on their new allies.

He’s still trying to work out the dynamics of the Starling group -- Felicity seems to be in charge, but Oliver can’t quite figure out _why_. She has next to no survival skills, trudging along near the middle of the group while Quentin’s on point with Dig. And based on what he’d seen back at the slaughterhouse, she can’t really fight; she’d tried gamely enough, but her motions were panicky, undisciplined, and only occasionally effective.

Still, she’d put her body between his son and danger, and Oliver can’t help but think her lack of skill only makes her actions _more_  brave. In this hellish _after_ , he’s seen his fair share of cowards, and he’s learned to value innate bravery over most other qualities -- even proficiency with weapons. Fighting can be taught; cowardice is permanent.

He doesn’t quite understand Felicity, but he already considers her valuable.

As they walk, he evaluates the others. Quentin, Oliver likes instinctively. The other man seems grounded and gruff, qualities that Oliver can identify with. The older man is comfortable with weapons and has a protective streak a mile wide. Oliver doesn’t miss the parental way Quentin relates to Iris and Felicity, keeping tabs on where they are as the group treks through the woods.

Iris and Ray remain mostly unknowns to Oliver -- his impression of them so far is that they are well-meaning, but untrained.

It makes him wonder about Starling -- what kind of place can it be that has allowed them to remain so unchanged by this hellish _after_  they all live in? Every survivor he’s met to date has been hardened by necessity. The soft ones, they’re all dead. Felicity and the others -- they’re not _soft_ , exactly, but they’re not battle-tested, either.

As the group treks on through the night, he finds his attention drawn back to Felicity herself time and again. First, she’s walking up near the front, chattering away to Iris and to Thea, who seems charmed by the petite blonde. Then Felicity drops back, offering William a piece of her power bar with a smile. Oliver watches as the reserved, mistrustful boy who’d taken nearly six months to warm up to his own father offers a shy smile to this strange woman, accepting the extra bit of food with a murmured thanks.

Barry falls into step with Oliver and announces, “I like her.”

Oliver hums noncommittally in response. He has a lot of respect for Barry these days, even considers him a friend, but Oliver has no intention of spending any time gossiping about the Starlingers.

“I knew you’d say that.” Barry sounds like he’s trying not to laugh.

“I didn’t say anything,” Oliver points out. Because he doesn’t have a fixed opinion of Felicity yet, and he has more important things to think about at the moment. He’s not stopping her from talking to his son, which is indication enough that he hasn’t categorized her as an immediate threat.

“You didn’t have to,” Barry answers, and Oliver can tell without looking that the younger man is grinning up at him. “Your grumpy face said it all.”

“I do _not_  have--” Oliver breaks off with a sigh, because he can tell Barry’s overtired and that means he won’t _stop talking_. “Barry, I don’t have the energy for this.” Oliver’s exhausted and sore and he knows now that those Union Station assholes got in a couple good shots, because his left thigh aches with each step.

“‘Kay,” Barry agrees easily enough. “She’s really pretty, though. And Iris is... _wow_ ,” he continues, his voice dropping into a reverential hush. “Do you think all the women in Starling are that beautiful?”

“Yes, Barry. Maybe they’re sirens,” Oliver answers gruffly, but he’s a bit distracted by the sudden quiet in the woods. No owls hooting, no chirping cicadas, no nocturnal animals moving around the underbrush. Oliver’s spine prickles with a sudden suspicious awareness.

“Did you just make a joke?” Barry asks, too incredulous to have noticed the change in the atmosphere around them. “Did you make a joke about _Greek mythology_?”

Oliver hears it then, and lets out a low hiss; his people freeze immediately, but the others stumble slowly to a stop, exchanging confused looks. Diggle and Quentin are both staring to the right, same as Oliver; clearly they’d heard enough to be suspicious.

Felicity frowns, and Oliver can see it coming before she even opens her mouth. He shakes his head in warning, but she speaks anyway -- albeit in a low tone. “What’s wrong?”

Underbrush crackles thirty yards away; maybe twenty-five. Oliver knows immediately it’s walkers, even before he hears the telltale low moans. It’s a group from the sound of it, and Oliver gets that hit of adrenaline that tells him there are more than just a couple stragglers coming. _Fuck_.

“Formation,” he orders, and his people move immediately -- forming a protective circle around William, the best fighters with Oliver and facing the immediate threat. Felicity, Ray, and Iris exchange glances, then draw their weapons and join the ring. But Oliver can read the hesitation in their bodies. “No,” he orders, his tone clipped. He pulls his recurve bow from his back and grabs three arrows. “Stand back.”

Felicity throws a glare at him over her shoulder. “I can fight.”

“Definitely,” Ray chimes in, sounding oddly cheerful considering their circumstances. “After the cannibals, this should be a little easie-- _Oh_.”

The dead stumble out of the underbrush, one right after another, and Oliver knows Ray is just realizing what he’d already deduced -- there are a _lot_  of walkers converging on their location.

Oliver takes a breath, nocks an arrow, and lets it fly.

Taking on the dead is less of a fight with an opponent than it is a careful slaughter of an oncoming wave. All the walkers want is to eat; they are mindless but they simply _keep coming_. So Oliver, Dig, Thea, and Barry mow them down as quickly, as precisely as possible. Head shot, move on, head shot, move on.

Oliver goes through the arrows in his quiver, Thea and Barry fire the crossbows, and Diggle uses a long, sturdy, pointed stick until the horde presses closer. Helena and Sebastian fan out to the sides, because the horde _keeps coming_ , leaving Tommy standing guard over William.

The Starling crew is holding their own -- mostly. Ray is big and strong, but overconfident and woefully untrained. Iris and Felicity are quick, which is an important attribute in the face of the walkers’ lumbering persistence. But they are also clearly scared, shoulders pulled up around their ears, movements forceful but jittery. Diggle and Barry are pulling double duty to keep them from getting in over their heads.

Oliver spares glances for William, holding his knife, watching for his opportunity to run if things go south. The boy gives him a small, quick nod, and Tommy says, “We’re fine. Keep your head in the game.”

Oliver turns back to the fight. He kills another walker, then another, but they’re still coming. The dead stumble over the bodies of the walkers already dispatched, but still they come, a slow, relentless, moaning wave of destruction.

Fuck.

Oliver steps back, ribs protesting his exertion. He’s still straining to get a sense of the size of the horde in the dark when he sees three walkers approaching from the left. “Helena,” he says sharply, and she responds, neutralizing the threat. His breathing speeds up, jolted by the need to _get his people to safety_.

There are too many coming -- if they get surrounded by walkers, they’ll all die. They need to _go_.

“Too many,” he calls out, loudly, now, because the noise doesn’t matter at this point. The walkers _keep coming._  He can feel his group collapsing in closer to William, pulling Iris, Ray, and Quentin with them.

Felicity, though, tries to hold her ground, stabbing and slashing walkers with the large hunting knife Oliver’d given her. Dig gets a hand on her shirt and tugs her backwards. She doesn’t spare them a glance, just swats at Diggle’s arm and yells, “Get William out of here. Go. We’ll cover.”

Oliver orders, “Fall back. _Now_ ,” and Thea nods, turning back to join Tommy, the duo pulling William by the hand as they retreat. They’ve done this countless times before, and he trusts Thea and Tommy to keep William safe. Oliver makes sure he memorizes the direction they’re headed, then joins Diggle to flank Felicity. “Are you fucking crazy?” he demands, getting a shoulder in front of her protectively.

“I’m trying to keep your son safe,” she argues, then yelps when a walker takes a swipe at her, snagging her sleeve momentarily. Oliver and Diggle brain the thing in unison.

“Are you okay?” Oliver demands, feeling a flash of panic.

“I’m fine,” Felicity answers, her voice sharp with fear. “No scratches. And I can help.”

“That’s a close-range weapon,” Diggle says, much more kindly than Oliver would have, but Oliver is busy stepping forward, using his recurve bow to fend off three walkers. “You can’t hold off a horde with that.”

Oliver moves Felicity backwards slowly, keeping her safe, dispatching the dead, buying the others time. But when a walker approaches Oliver on the right, he feels another spike of panic and calls it. “Fall back. _Now_.” They can’t get surrounded or they’ll die right here in the fucking woods.

“But,” Felicity begins to protest, “we--”

Oliver wraps his free arm around her and drags her a few yards, then puts her back on her feet. “Run,” he orders. Loudly.

She turns to the left and is about to take off in completely the wrong direction. Dig lets out a huff that _might_  have been a laugh under less dire circumstances, and gently turns her shoulders. “That way.”

In unison, Oliver and Diggle face the oncoming walkers, standing shoulder to shoulder, angled to the sides to make sure no walkers get around behind them. They’ve done this a hundred times; they know their limits and when to rejoin the others. They’ll stay and fight, then retreat loudly enough to draw the walkers in the wrong direction, before putting on speed, circling around, and meeting back up with the others.

“Wait,” Felicity says from behind them, and Oliver could kill her for being so fucking difficult. He wonders if she’s actually _too_  brave for her own good. She’s even closer when she asks, “Why aren’t you coming with me?”

“We have a plan,” Oliver tells her, stabbing two walkers in quick succession. “Now go find the others.”

“I’m not leaving you two here,” she answers stubbornly.

“You’re just going to slow us down,” Oliver snaps. “ _Go_.”

“Rude,” she retorts breathlessly. “You suck at accepting help.”

“What Oliver means to say,” Diggle answers, “is that we’ve done this a lot and we can draw the walkers away like this. But the best way to keep William safe is for him to be surrounded by as many armed adults as possible.”

“Fine,” she relents, “But where are we meeting--?”

“Just _go_ ,” Oliver orders, too frustrated to moderate his tone. “Find the others. Get out of here.”

Finally, _finally_  she does, and Oliver huffs with indignation. “What a pain in the ass,” he comments to Diggle.

“Yeah, the perfect stranger who’s trying her damnedest to save _your_  kid,” Diggle answers, and there’s sarcasm in his tone that Oliver doesn’t quite understand. “That’s exactly how I’d describe her.”

Oliver wants to argue, but the horde is on them again. So he fights them instead.

& & &

Felicity runs in the direction Diggle indicated.

Well, she starts _out_  running, fueled by adrenaline and the fear of not catching up with the others and being lost by herself in the woods in the dark. The woods where all of those walkers are. So she runs for a few minutes, until her breath comes in heavy pants and she slows down to a much more manageable kind of brisk jog.

She’s just starting to get concerned about not being able to find the others when an arm shoots out and snags her around the waist. She yelps, but she’s so out of breath it’s not very loud.

When she regains her balance, she pushes free and glares at her momentary captor. It’s actually the tall, surprisingly strong man -- Barry, she thinks -- who’d tugged her into a well-hidden clearing where the others stand in a loose semi-circle, watching her with curiosity. Her gaze finds William almost immediately; he’s looking back at her with his serious little face, and she wonders how often the boy has reason to smile.

“You okay?” Barry asks, slowly drawing his arm from around her waist, as if he’s afraid she might fall down without his support.

She straightens her clothes a little ostentatiously as she says, “Thanks. I’m fine.”

Thea moves closer, scanning Felicity for injuries. “I knew my brother would send you back.” Before Felicity can do more than blink in mild confusion at that strange declaration, Thea turns back to the others. “We need to go another quarter mile or so.”

“How far have we gone so far?” Ray wonders.

“From the walker attack? Just about three quarters of a mile,” Thea answers. Off of Ray’s puzzled look, she adds with a wry smile, “We’re pretty good at this. We’ve done it kind of a lot.”

The specter of this kind of life, this kind of uncertainty hounding their every step, it makes Felicity mildly nauseated. Her worried gaze settles on William again, and maybe his somber nature shouldn’t be such a surprise. He shifts under her examination, ducking his chin. The handsome dark-haired, blue-eyed man who Felicity _thinks_  is either Tony or Tommy or possibly Ted kneels down in front of William, engaging him in quiet conversation until he coaxes a little smile from the boy.

“So you have a plan to meet back up with Oliver and John?” Felicity asks Thea and Barry. Because she’s a big believer in plans. She positively loves a good set of instructions in the right circumstance.

Like, say, wandering the woods in the dark while part of the group splinters off in some sort of _field maneuver_  to lead an appallingly large horde of walkers astray.

She misses Starling with a fierce, desperate kind of longing. Closing her eyes for a moment, she breathes in the crisp night air and lets herself miss home. Starling isn’t much -- not in comparison to the Vegas of Felicity’s childhood, or the Boston of her college years, but it’s _something_  more than living on the run the way Thea, Barry, and the rest seem to live.

“Felicity?” Iris asks. “Everything okay?”

Felicity gathers herself. “Yes. Fine. I’m good. We should...” She gestures vaguely in what turns out to be the _right_  direction. Quentin gives her a small smile in response, and she really shouldn’t feel so proud about it, considering it’d mostly been a guess on her part. “Let’s go.”

They set out, moving quickly and as quietly as possible through the forest. Felicity winces with every snapped twig, but her adrenaline-fueled hypervigilance fades as they continue their trek without encountering any of the dead.

When they stumble out onto an old dirt logging road, Barry and another man whose name Felicity hasn’t caught exchange looks and then gesture for everyone to stop. It’s an eerie setting -- dim moonlight making the dirt seem grey beneath their feet, the trees on either side blending into a foreboding blur of darkness while the road fades into vague nothingness in either direction.

She’s pretty sure she’d seen a couple horror movies with settings like this _before_ , back when they _had_  things like movies and TV. What she wouldn’t give for an evening on her couch watching dumb old shows on Netflix.

“It’s close enough,” Thea murmurs to Barry and to the square-jawed man from their group who’s got his arms crossed in what seems like disagreement with Thea’s plan. “They’ll recognize the advantage when they reach the road, too.”

“There’s a pretty strong _dis_ advantage,” argues the disagreeable man. His features are mostly lost to Felicity in the darkness -- he’s white, with dark hair, and mostly forgettable features, save his noticeably square jaw. Square Jaw’s voice is low and has a certain unnameable quality that sets Felicity’s nerves just ever so slightly on edge.

Felicity looks around. “What’s the disadvantage to this dirt road?” she wonders. Because, yeah, she’s admittedly not great on the survivalist front, but it’s a _road_  and they have decent sightlines.

Barry drifts closer, and she thinks he’s got a rather apologetic look on his face. “Well, out in the open, we can see walkers coming better than in the woods, but,” he pauses, exchanging a look with Thea, who shrugs one shoulder. “We’re also sitting ducks for any of the living who may want to take a shot at us.”

Iris, standing beside Felicity with her arms crossed, wonders, “Who would want to take a shot at us? We’re not _doing_  anything.”

Felicity expects Barry to answer, but it’s Square Jaw who provides a slightly patronizing explanation. “I’m not sure what kind of cushy life you’ve had in Starling,” he says, “or how you’ve managed to stay so _sheltered_  for so long--”

“Hey, that’s enough,” warns the man she’s pretty sure he’s named Tommy.

But Square Jaw simply ignores the interjection. “Out in the real world, the only bigger threat than the dead are the _living_. Everything’s a fight for survival out here.”

“Hey,” Iris snaps, “Starling _is_  real, and we work our asses off to survive. We’re careful and we’re safe and we’re not scared of our fellow human beings just because they’ve managed to stay alive, too.”

“Enough,” Quentin interrupts, appearing at Felicity’s elbow. When she glances up at him, his challenging gaze is fixed on Square Jaw. “We can save the philosophical discussions for when we’re _not_  on the run from a horde, yeah?”

“Yes, I think we can,” Tommy agrees with a surprisingly easy smile, considering the situation.

Square Jaw huffs his indignation, but turns away without arguing further.

An uneasy silence descends on the group. After a moment, Felicity looks up with wide eyes at the curtain of stars above. She’s not sure whether Square Jaw’s point is right or wrong or somewhere in between, but she knows that everything feels different out here in the world. Less certain, for sure. Scarier.

Starling isn’t a magical untouched fairytale land -- the walkers come sometimes, but they’ve kept the walls up, added inner walls for redundancy. They’ve got lookouts posted 24/7. They’ve faced threats and they understand the horrible aspects of the world _after_ , but in Starling, above all else, they’ve always felt _secure_.

Out here, Felicity feels like everything is entirely out of her control. She really doesn’t like feeling out of control. Turning to Thea, she asks, “When will they be here?”

Thea seems mostly calm, maybe only a little nervous. “Soon,” she answers. When Felicity gives her an exasperated look, Thea shrugs, “It’ll take as long as it takes. If they’re not here within a half hour, we walk another mile, same direction.”

“This is like the world’s creepiest game of Marco Polo,” Felicity grumbles.

“They’ll find us,” Barry answers quietly. “We just need to be patient.”

“Patience,” Iris remarks, her voice low and kind despite her words, “is not Felicity’s strong suit.”

Felicity feels a burst of amusement, and grins at her friend, but before she can respond, Ray says, rather too loudly for the circumstance, “Hey, guys? Guys!” Felicity, Iris, Thea, and Quentin turn to see a group of a dozen walkers bleeding out from the treeline, lurching directly toward their group.

Adrenaline hits, and they spring into action, circling around William, Thea and Tommy sticking particularly close to the boy.

Felicity has Oliver’s giant hunting knife in her hand, eyes wide, breath coming in sharp pants as the walkers move closer. Just like before, Oliver’s group is a well-coordinated marvel, while Felicity, Iris, Ray, and Quentin pitch in as much as they can. Quentin has a grace under pressure from his training as a cop, and wields his weapon confidently; Ray, Iris, and Felicity are much less coordinated.

She glances over her shoulder at William, checking to make sure he’s safely out of harm’s way, but when she turns back, there’s a walker two steps away from her and closing fast. Felicity yanks her arm up and takes a big, unsteady step backwards. Before she can panic, there’s a hissing sound, and an arrow appears in the walker’s head just before it drops, harmless, at her feet.

“Oh,” Felicity says, eyes wide.

And then Oliver is at her shoulder, and just after him, Diggle appears between Iris and Ray.

There aren’t very many walkers this time, and they’re dispatched fairly quickly. It’s nothing like the massive wave of them that Diggle and Oliver had led away.

Felicity turns away from the carnage, moving to William and crouching down to look him in the face. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” he answers with a nod. “I’m fine.” He looks over her shoulder. “Dad?”

“It’s okay, William,” Oliver answers. Felicity drops one knee to the dirt for stability, then half-turns to look up at Oliver and evaluate the truth of his words for herself. He meets her gaze stoically. “We led the horde east and circled back,” he tells her, and she can read the honesty in his face. “We’re okay for now, but we need to keep moving.”

Square Jaw appears at Oliver’s shoulder. “How far to Starling?” he demands.

Felicity pushes to her feet, about to tell Square Jaw exactly where he can stuff his attitude, when Oliver demands, “What’s wrong?”

But Square Jaw ignores Oliver, his intense gaze focused on Felicity. “How far?”

“I’m not sure,” Felicity answers, and her sense that Square Jaw is even more disagreeable than earlier is the only reason she doesn’t actually yell at him when he rolls his eyes. Instead, she turns to Quentin. “How far are we from home?”

Quentin narrows his eyes. “Probably another six, seven hours walking.”

Oliver hasn’t shifted his gaze from Square Jaw. “Sebastian,” he orders. “What’s the matter?”

Square Jaw -- _Sebastian_  shakes his head. “Nothing. Just -- we should keep moving.” Before Oliver can respond, Sebastian pushes his way through the group and off to the north, not waiting to see if anyone is following him.

Which is strange, Felicity thinks, because he doesn’t actually know where he’s going. She turns back to Oliver and scans his features, which are just as handsome and inscrutable in the dim moonlight. “He seems really charming,” she remarks.

Oliver meets her gaze for a long moment, then glances away, searching out Diggle in the crowd. “He doesn’t like new people,” Oliver answers belatedly. Felicity huffs a little -- because that’s kind of the grumpy pot calling the kettle a jerk -- but Oliver doesn’t acknowledge it. “We should go,” he says, moving to the center of the group. He doesn’t have to raise his voice because everyone’s attention is already on him. “Let’s move out.”

Felicity exchanges puzzled looks with Quentin, and when he moves to the front of the group, she hangs well back. As they set out, Felicity watches carefully, trying to understand the strange undercurrent. She notices that Diggle has taken up the rear, while Oliver shadows William and Thea closely near the back. The others in Oliver’s group -- Tommy, Barry, plus a woman whose name Felicity hasn’t caught -- make up the middle of their little convoy.

It takes them a bit to catch up to Sebastian, and when they do, Barry glances back at Oliver for a moment, before moving up to walk beside Sebastian. Felicity recognizes their wordless communication, but she doesn’t _understand_  it, and that bothers her.

She has tried _so_  hard the past three years to maintain her equilibrium, to avoid giving into desolation and despair. She’s held fast to her unwavering belief in the genuine goodness of people, which means that she invites strangers into Starling all the time.

She is willing to open Starling’s doors to Oliver and his whole group, because she believes in the basic decency of humanity. But there’s something she doesn’t quite understand about Oliver and the others.

As if he can sense her unsettled thoughts, Oliver glances over his shoulder, catching and holding her gaze for a long, wordless moment.

She tips her head, a silent question. But Oliver just presses his lips together and turns away. He puts on a little burst of speed, catching up easily with his son and his sister, and paying Felicity no more attention.

She’s tired and cranky and unnerved by the last few days’ events, yes, but the thing that is bothering her the most as she trudges on towards home is that she doesn’t quite know what she’s invited into Starling.

 

END CHAPTER ONE


	3. Chapter Two:  Apus

 

 

After nearly six long, grueling hours walking through the late night and early morning, and finally into the sunrise, they reach Starling suddenly.

One moment, Oliver and his burning eyes and sharply protesting ribs are trudging along at the back of their ragtag group, surrounded by trees and underbrush; the next, they all spill out into what amounts to a couple dozen yards of grassy moat separating the forest from the imposing walls.

Starling, presumably, sits protected behind the corrugated metal barrier.

Felicity and Ray keep walking for a few moments, before realizing Oliver and his group have stopped short at the treeline. The two Starlingers turn back, and Iris and Quentin drift closer, until the groups have split apart -- Starlingers and Oliver’s people, watching each other across a few feet of grass.

Oliver assesses immediately, _instinctively_ , despite the fact that he’s just about at the end of his endurance. The wall is mostly corrugated metal sheeting, stretching in both directions for farther than Oliver ever would've expected. The shape doesn’t arc enough to be a circle, but the walls are not long straight lines, either. It seems more organic -- like they built straight segments that met each other at haphazard angles, creating what must be a large, irregular, decagonal-like shape from above.

Standing out here in the grassy field, they can see nothing of whatever Starling is -- the walls are a good twenty feet high and, as far as Oliver can tell, _unmanned_. Poor tactical decision, he thinks, wondering how many other weaknesses he'll identify in their defenses.

"Oh," says Thea, turning wide, impressed eyes to Oliver. "This looks pretty solid."

Oliver grimaces, because what she's really saying is, _See, I told you so. It is possible to settle down, to create a safe space in this after-world_. Oliver has never agreed, and simply seeing a place that has been left relatively untouched is not persuasive.

After all, they have no idea what's happened so far to Starling. They certainly don’t know what'll happen next week.

It's safer to keep moving, to stay mobile, no matter how imposing Starling's walls seem from the outside. Barriers to keep the dead out can transform too quickly into barriers keeping _you_  in, leaving you at the mercy of the dead.

Oliver learned his lesson those months they spent trapped in a 60-story office building as the city died around them. He remembers the panic, the stifling knowledge that there was _no way out_. And mostly, he remembers his parents willingly facing death to get Thea and William and Tommy and him out unscathed.

He will not dishonor their sacrifice by allowing his sister -- or anyone else he's responsible for -- to be trapped and overrun and killed.

No matter how open and trustworthy and well-meaning Felicity and her people seem, Oliver’s instincts strongly protest the idea of being trapped in Starling.

He stands stiffly while his people examine the tall walls with varying degrees of curiosity and respect. Felicity and the other Starlingers watch quietly, not hurrying them along, not expressing much impatience, just kind of observing their reaction. Their patience is commendable, considering they’ve been awake a solid twenty hours at least, and fighting or walking for the last ten. And it’s not like any of them slept soundly while locked into non-functioning, airtight freezers, held captive by cannibals.

Once Oliver is convinced there’s no immediate threat from whoever’s inside the walls, he takes quick stock of his group, scanning for their reactions. Diggle looks stoically hopeful, William is all quiet, wide-eyed curiosity, and Tommy is staring patiently back at Oliver. Thea and Barry are practically bouncing on their toes with excitement, while Helena hangs back as usual, but Oliver knows her well enough to recognize her repressed excitement. Sebastian merely grimaces, still holding himself a little stiffly from hours walking on a tweaked ankle.

Oliver can empathize -- his bruised thigh is protesting and his ribs are on fire, and the pain on top of the exhaustion certainly has affected his temper. No matter what he thinks of Starling for the long term, right now, they need a safe spot to rest and heal.

After all, Diggle’s got a wrist that’s swollen and should be wrapped, if not splinted, and Helena’s got a sprain, at least, if her increasing limp is any indication. Oliver’s sure that Tommy and Thea have have at least a few bruises from the fighting that could use rest and maybe even compresses. But none of them have been willing to slow down the march to potential safety in order to patch themselves up; as a result, they’re all exhausted.

"Yeah," Felicity says, breaking Oliver’s focus on his group, "so this is Starling." She hooks a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the imposing wall, then drops her hands to her sides like she's not quite sure what she's supposed to be doing. Then she shrugs. "Welcome, Team Arrow."

Oliver blinks at her. “What?”

She waves vaguely at the bow slung across his body. “You know, because of that. Team Bow and Arrow and Crossbow and Pointy Sticks and Knives and Stuff is too long to say.” She shrugs. “So: Team Arrow.”

“It sounds cool,” Barry decides.

Oliver shoots him a glare. “We don’t call ourselves that,” he protests, but Felicity just grins at him, unrepentant and probably overtired. She’s disheveled, wispy hairs that long escaped her ponytail create a fuzzy halo around her face, and her clothes are no longer quite as untouched as they had been twelve hours ago. She’s got smudges of dirt and possibly blood on her cheek, and she’s still smiling at them like the world hasn’t gone mad the last three years. He does not understand her at all.

"Uh, Felicity?" Barry points to the flash of movement atop the wall that caught both Oliver's and Diggle's attention as well.

Felicity whirls, her crooked ponytail flying through the air before slapping her cheek. "Oh," she says. Then she waves eagerly to the lookout. "It's okay," she calls out, and Oliver winces at the sound -- it's like a beacon for any nearby dead, who will wander unerringly towards loud noises. "We're back safe. With... some others."

Oliver is braced for trouble, his bow at the ready, his right hand hovering over the arrows in his quiver. He’s got an ear out for the unmistakable moan of the dead, and his attention snaps from the top of the walls to the edges of the forest behind them and back again. They are badly exposed out here in this grassy moat, easy pickings for someone guarding Starling from the wall, or for a flanking maneuver behind them.

Then the person on guard pops up to full height, and Oliver relaxes infinitesimally when he confirms she’s not pointing a weapon at them. It’s a statuesque brunette with her arms crossed over her chest. She's too far away for additional detail, but Oliver appreciates the skeptical way she watches them for a long moment before nodding. "Come on around."

“Wow,” Tommy murmurs, and in other circumstances, Oliver would be amused to find his friend looking so unexpectedly gobsmacked by a woman. Tommy, like Oliver, used to have his pick of beautiful women _before_ ; but things are so very different in the dirty, disheartening _after_. Oliver’s not that guy anymore -- and, honestly, neither is Tommy. But even if they were so inclined, there’s no time for distractions.

Releasing his hold on the arrow, Oliver lets it fall back into his nearly empty quiver, and reaches over to tap Tommy’s shoulder. A bit startled, Tommy turns, eyebrows up in question, then gives Oliver a rueful grin. “Right,” Tommy mutters, “no fun allowed during the apocalypse.”

Oliver gives his friend an irritable look, but Tommy is characteristically unfazed. Tommy abides by Oliver’s rules not out of friendship, but out of gratitude because Oliver showed up at the Merlyn mansion as Tommy was actively starving to death, and rapidly losing his mind from the isolation. Oliver had risked a lot detouring to his best friend’s house when his family had decided that the penthouse apartments at Queen Consolidated would be easier to defend than a huge mansion with so many entry points and no independent source of water or electricity. Despite the horrific way their time in the QC tower ended, Tommy still sees joining up with Oliver and Thea and William and, eventually, the others as a second chance at life.

But while Tommy is nothing like the carefree playboy from _before_ , he has always been one to embrace life to the fullest. That particular quality hasn’t faded, day after day evading walkers and hunting for food and living rough. In fact, Oliver could definitely see Tommy falling for someone and trying to eke out some kind of normal life, relishing the simple pleasures.

Oliver honestly can’t fathom what happily ever after would look like in this hellscape, but some small part of him envies Tommy that kind of hope.

"Yay," Felicity cheers, turning back to the group. Oliver focuses on her, but her attention is on William. She grins and holds out her hand to him. "You want to be the first one through the gates? It's kind of a big honor around here."

William glances back at Oliver for permission, and _every_  bone in Oliver's body wants to protest. What if he's been reading Felicity wrong? What if the four putative Starlingers spun a tale out of necessity, knowing they were outnumbered by Oliver's people? What if they've been biding their time, using Oliver's numbers to get them safely home, where they'll turn on Oliver and the others?

A sharp elbow nudges him _hard_  in the ribs, and Oliver sucks in a pained breath. "Fuck," he mutters.

Thea looks at him with sudden concern. "Sorry, I just -- Don't be stupid. They're not gonna hurt William, or any of the rest of us." Then her head tilts stubbornly. "And apparently you need medical attention."

"It's just a couple cracked ribs," he murmurs, because he'd rather not broadcast his compromised strength. Then he turns his attention back to his son, who's still hesitating, waiting on Oliver's approval. "Go ahead," he decides. A rare smile breaks across William's face as he turns back to Felicity. Oliver lets his gaze shift to the tiny blonde, too; she's looking back at him with a tentative smile, but he keeps his expression carefully neutral. "I'll be right behind you."

It's a warning, a reminder that he doesn't trust any of them, and in reaction, whatever warmth he'd seen in her eyes fades fast. In fact, she gives him a little glare before turning on her heel and leading his son along the fence. If he weren’t so anxious about their situation, he might’ve found her feistiness amusing.

Oliver pushes his way through the rest of the group, not missing Thea's long-suffering sigh at his behavior. But he would rather come across as a mistrustful brute than allow a single hair on his son's head to be harmed. He falls in a few steps behind Felicity, splitting his attention between William and the wall at their right.

As they circle the fence, Oliver examines the tin and aluminum sheeting that the Starlingers have bolted together to create a hard, defensible border. They've done a reasonably good job, he thinks; each sheet overlaps the next, leaving no obvious points of weakness. The sheets that meet at odd angles are securely attached, with the edge of one sheet continuing several feet past the connection point to shield the join from straight-on attacks.

When Oliver spots an angled meeting with a small gap between the metal sheeting, he realizes the Starlingers have managed to cleverly obscure the entrance from anyone approaching from a less acute angle than they are. There’s maybe a foot and a half gap created by not actually attaching the overlapping sheets to each other, allowing people through one by one.

Felicity urges William forward, crouching down to give him instructions, and Oliver's entire body tenses. He is only just barely able to keep himself from yanking William back to his side.

William slips through the gap easily and stops where he's still visible. Oliver can read wonder and a lack of fear in his son's body, and lets out a harsh breath of relief. He glances at Felicity, who is still giving him a sour look. "You really do think the worst of everyone, don't you?" she asks, and if he didn't know better, he'd think she sounded disappointed in him.

"Keeping my son and my sister safe is my priority. I'm not that worried about hurting your feelings," he tells her, then moves past her to the gap in the fencing. It's narrower than it looks, and he grudgingly admits they've created a clever defensive bottleneck -- they'd be able to hold off an attack pretty easily so long as the gap didn't widen.

Angling his shoulders sideways, he steps through the entrance and into -- another grassy moat between the external fence and another interior fence. His hand lands on William’s shoulder, and he pulls the boy closer as he sets eyes on a small, slim, strong young man in a red hoodie. The man has dark hair and the general chiseled look of someone who would’ve been in one of those boy bands Thea used to love; Oliver distrusts him immediately.

The young man lifts his chin in wordless greeting, but doesn’t otherwise move. He’s standing beside a tall, heavy section of metal that’s leaning against the wall. Oliver sees only a sheathed knife on the man and dismisses him as an immediate threat, taking a closer look at the metal sheet. He realizes they’ve fashioned it into a makeshift door -- there are carabiner clips dangling at regular intervals down the sides, and now that he understands the design, he can see heavy iron hooks on the walls themselves used to secure the door to each wall.

Oliver scans his surroundings as the rest of his people and the Starlingers step through one by one. The exterior fence is buttressed at regular intervals by what appear to be repurposed streetlight posts canted at 45 degree angles. And he can see a couple guard towers -- little platforms built to allow lookouts cover if necessary behind the top of the fence, and enough clearance when standing to get off shots from guns or bows. The brunette who’d caught Tommy’s attention is crouched on the closest guard post; she's no longer watching them, instead scanning the forest carefully.

The interior fence is nearly identical to the exterior, but placed a good forty yards across the open grass. There are several visible lookouts along the inner fence, watching them curiously. The guards aren't holding weapons at the ready, but Oliver can see the telltale shape of guns hanging on their hips, so he knows they're armed.

All in all, Oliver is grudgingly impressed to learn they're a little better at defending their town than he'd imagined they would be. He knows a large enough horde could still cut a deadly swath right through Starling, but they're in pretty good shape to defend against the living.

If Oliver’s learned anything the past three years, it’s that the living are far, far more dangerous than the dead.

Felicity is the last to step through the gap, and she gives the young man in the red hoodie a quick hug before they lift the large sheet of metal and heft into place, securing it to the wall with the carabiners along each side. That done, she turns to the group and says, “Well, let’s get you all into bed!”

Tommy actually guffaws at that. “If you insist,” he says, with a raised eyebrow and suggestive smirk.

Felicity frowns, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink. “Not -- You know what I mean.”

Thea and Diggle seem utterly charmed by her, and Tommy is obviously amused enough to tease her, but Oliver is reserving judgment. She’s a disarming combination of accidental honestly, brains, bravery, and the kind of beauty Oliver hasn’t seen much of the last several years. There’s something almost... _unvarnished_  about her, and he cannot understand how someone can survive in this decaying world they live in and still be okay.

When she turns away, Oliver pulls himself out of his pointless thoughts, shifting his grip on William’s shoulder to slide his palm down to the boy’s back and urge him forward. William takes two quick steps and falls in with Thea, who offers her hand to hold.

The group crosses the grassy moat quickly, and slips through a similar gap in the inner fencing, only this time they step out onto the edge of a strangely suburban street. The pavement is smooth and uncracked, the white and yellow lines only a little faded with age and unforgiving sunshine. An assortment of aesthetically consistent houses in soft shades of neutral sit evenly along either side of the street.

The entire effect is bizarre, like they’ve stepped not through a fence, but through a crack in time to _before_.

Oliver hasn’t seen anything like this in years. Seattle fell into chaos in the early months, the city smashed and burned by turns. Even after they got out, every successive town they found was ransacked -- broken plate glass windows in stores with only pointless novelty plastic items left, and houses filled with the dead.

But this -- Starling -- it looks like a middle class version of the future his parents used to imagine for him. It looks like late capitalist American suburbia, except for the total lack of cars and the abundance of leafy gardens in raised beds scattered across the lawns. Most surprising of all, Oliver can see the warm glow of a lamp in the window of the closest house.

“Wait,” Thea says, pointing at that same lamp. “Is that -- do you have _electricity_?”

It’s the tall, broad man -- _Ray_ , Oliver remembers -- who answers. Enthusiastically. Which is the way he seems to do everything. “We do!” he says with a grin. “This town was an early adopter of solar power before the -- well, _before_. So with a little rewiring, we were able to make sure there’s electricity most of the time in most of the houses.”

“Most of the time?” Dig asks, even as he’s scanning their surroundings, no doubt looking for any sign of Lyla and Sola and Nyssa.

Ray shrugs, his grin firmly in place. “We don’t have an industrial age coal-burning power plant, so sometimes the demand is higher than what the panels can convert into energy. But we make do.”

Thea steps closer, tilting her head back to fix Ray with an incisive look. “Does this mean you have _hot water_?”

“Absolutely!”

She links her arm with Ray’s and urges him forward. “I already _love_  this place, then.”

Oliver rolls his eyes at his sister’s antics, but at least she got them all moving. The group walks quietly down the middle of the street until suddenly two Starlingers are rushing towards them. The approach sets Oliver on edge, until the older man heads straight for Iris, and the young blonde nearly tackles Quentin with a hug. He wonders how long Felicity and the others have been gone; he wonders if their families had feared them dead.

And then he wonders why no one is running to embrace Felicity or Ray, who for the first time since Oliver’s met him seems less than cheerful. There’s a mournful sadness on his face that Oliver recognizes immediately; almost everyone left standing in this joyless _after_  has lost people.

Felicity looks mostly unaffected, beaming softly at the reunions around her. But just as she turns away, Oliver catches the way her mouth tightens, how her gaze drops to the ground, a certain tension in her body that suggests that she, too, has lost loved ones. It surprises him to feel a kinship with her in that one hidden moment of grief.

She brightens almost immediately, though, turning to the man in the red hoodie to ask: “How many bedrooms and houses do we have free right now?” They discuss the problem quickly, glancing at Oliver’s people, counting and recounting, Felicity gesturing a bit wildly in a few directions as she suggests different places that may be available.

Oliver steps closer. “Thea and William stay with me. The rest can double up. And Diggle--”

“Oh!” Felicity smacks her forehead with the heel of her hand, turning an apologetic look to Diggle. “I am _so_  sorry! How could I have forgotten your--” She shakes her head, whirling back to her conversational companion. “Has anyone arrived named Lyla? Or Nyssa? Two women and--”

“A little girl,” says the older black man whom Oliver assumes is Iris’s father, flashing a crooked smile to Diggle. “That’s your family?”

“Yes,” Diggle says on a relieved exhale.

“Joe West,” the other man says, offering Dig his hand. “They’re over on Sycamore. Let me take you to them.”

“John Diggle.” Dig shakes Joe’s hand firmly. “My friends call me Dig.” He glances back at Oliver, who gives him a small smile.

“Go,” Oliver says. “I’ll come say hi once we’re settled.”

Diggle and Joe move quickly away, Ray and Iris following behind slowly, heading back to their normal lives within these walls no doubt.

Felicity and her young, taciturn friend gather the rest of Oliver’s people in a loose semi-circle so she can start explaining the housing options

“Can we just shower and sleep and figure out the rest later?” Thea interjects with a decidedly whiny note to her question. Oliver nudges her, a silent warning to be nice. She doesn’t look at him, but she does add in a much kinder tone, “I just think our brains will function a bit better after a shower. In hot water. I cannot _wait_  for the hot water.”

Felicity grins. “Me, too! And I am incredibly excited about showering and sleeping, too. Come on, let’s get you settled.”

Oliver nods and follows in her wake.

& & &

Felicity leads Oliver’s group down Cedar, providing a brief history of Starling, and a sketch of the general organization of the town as the walk. “Basically,” she summarizes once she realizes she’s starting to ramble, “the group of houses that function as town center are literally in the center. So if you just put the wall to your back and go straight ahead, you’ll find it.”

They walk a bit farther in silence, but Felicity can’t seem to get her mouth to stop talking. She’s exhausted and her feet hurt from walking and she’s got a dozen cuts and bruises from all the fighting they’d done, plus a hot, tight sore spot along her abdomen from a particularly heavy shot one of the cannibals got in, and, God, she is so, so relieved to be home. She’s afraid if she doesn’t keep herself distracted, she’ll succumb to a good, long cry of relief, and she refuses to do that in front of the newcomers. So she starts explaining the origin of the street names, but Tommy interrupts with a sardonic, “They’re named after trees.”

“Right,” she agrees, feeling a slight flush along her cheekbones. “Sorry. I’m really _really_  tired and I talk a lot when I’m _not_  basically sleeping upright, so...” She shrugs. “Yeah. Okay, this is Pine.” She turns left, determinedly.

When they reach her house, she indicates the one across the street. “That has three bedrooms, plus I think the couch is probably workable.” She points to a smaller house two doors down. “That one can sleep four more, maybe five?” Then she tips her head towards her own place, a perfectly respectable two bedroom that she shares with Iris and with Sara when she and Laurel and Quentin aren’t getting along. “Someone can sleep with me, too.” She winces. “Bunk with me,” she corrects quickly. “And by that I mean sleep in the free room.”

Oliver’s people break off into smaller groups, their discussions held primarily in shorthand that Felicity couldn’t fully follow, but the end result is Tommy and Sebastian wandering over to the smaller house, while Oliver, William, Thea, and a beautiful, reticent woman that Felicity _thinks_  is named Helena head across the street. Felicity finds herself suddenly way too interested in figuring out the relationship between Oliver and the gorgeous brunette -- well, the gorgeous brunette who’s _not_  his sister -- but is distracted from those super unhelpful thoughts when Barry gives her a hopeful puppy look and says, “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

“Oh, wait,” Thea says, loudly enough to catch Felicity’s attention.

“What’s wrong?” Felicity wonders.

But Thea’s attention is on her brother. “You need to get your ribs wrapped.”

“Thea,” Oliver warns, but he relents when William reaches for his hand and says, “Please, Dad?”

Felicity can practically hear Oliver’s teeth grinding when he turns back to her and asks, “Are there any first aid supplies in there?” He tilts his head towards the house.

“Band-aids and salve, yes. Ace bandages?” She wrinkles her nose, considering. “Probably not.”

Oliver nods. “It’ll keep until tomorrow.”

“Or,” Felicity counters, “you could come with me to the infirmary. We have a doctor! Well,” she frowns, “no, that’s an overstatement. But we _do_  have a physical therapist who we entrust with our medical care.”

Oliver watches her levelly. “A physical therapist,” he repeats. A little too judgmentally for her tastes.

“He’s got more training than any of the rest of us,” she points out. Perhaps defensively. But, really, who is he to turn his nose up at semi-knowledgeable medical care?

“Dad,” William says again, and Oliver sighs.

“Fine,” he agrees, not even trying to mask his general grumpiness. “William, you go with Aunt Thea. Shower and then get some sleep. Both of you. I’ll be back before you wake up.”

William nods, then turns back to Felicity with a small, shy smile. “Bye, Felicity.”

Felicity can’t help but grin at the boy. “Bye, William. I’ll see you a little later, okay?”

Oliver waits until his son, his sister, and the beautiful Helena disappear into the house before he turns back to Felicity. “Where’s the infirmary?”

“I’ll show you!” she says, and heads off without giving him time to argue. Paul and Curtis live only a block and a half away, close to town center, and she doesn’t bother to make conversation with her taciturn new neighbor as they walk. At Paul and Curtis’s townhouse, she knocks on the door and then pushes it open. “Paul?”

Paul, with many of the Starlingers’ help, has turned the small townhouse into a decent medical facility. The living room has been converted into a small waiting area, and they’d added doors to the dining room to turn it into the treatment room. Paul and Curtis live upstairs, and the kitchen serves dual purposes -- cooking _and_  sterilizing icky medical things as needed.

Felicity so very much appreciates Paul’s willingness to step in as the makeshift doctor for Starling, but the very idea of eating dinner at Paul and Curtis’s house makes her stomach churn. She adores them both and she knows they are scrupulously careful about everything, but she is incredibly squeamish.

Curtis appears from the kitchen with a curious look on his face and a mostly eaten sandwich in his hand. “Felicity!” he greets, then glances past her. His eyes widen slightly. “And -- hi. You’re new. I would’ve remembered you.” He blinks. “I mean, I have a good memory for faces. I’m Curtis,” he adds with a little laugh. “Paul’s right -- Oh, Paul’s right here,” he continues, grinning at his husband, who joins them in the living room. “This is Paul.”

“Oliver,” Oliver says, his tone flat.

Felicity turns narrowed eyes on him, wondering if he’s grumbly and grumpy _and_  a homophobe. Oliver glances at her and looks momentarily confused by her glare, then straightens his shoulders and turns back to Paul and Curtis.

“Welcome, Oliver.” Paul says. “Medical attention?” he guesses, one eyebrow lifting.

“Just need my ribs wrapped,” he answers. And then before any of them can say anything else, before Paul can usher him into the treatment room, Oliver reaches for the hem of his dirty shirt and yanks it up and over his head, wincing slightly with the movement.

Felicity hears a slight choking sound coming from the direction of Curtis, but she cannot tear her eyes from Oliver’s _incredible_  torso long enough to give Curtis a smack. Felicity is beside and slightly behind Oliver, so she takes a good, long, probably inappropriate look at his muscular back, frowning as her gaze traces a truly upsetting collection of scars.

Curtis clears his throat. “I’m gonna...” And he turns and heads upstairs, leaving Felicity to awkwardly gawk by herself.

“Uh,” Felicity begins, “the treatment room is actually,” she points past Oliver to the half-open door, “back there.”

Oliver shrugs those really, really muscular shoulders, and Felicity’s mouth feels weirdly dry. “I’m fine here.”

“Definitely not broken,” Paul surmises in his calm, professional voice, “but maybe cracked. Bruised for sure.” He steps closer, pausing with his hands lifted toward Oliver’s chest. “May I?”

Oliver jerks a nod, and Paul’s fingers ease along the angry bruising down Oliver’s left side. Felicity moves back, dropping onto the couch to give them a bit more privacy. Oliver stands still, not reacting much while Paul examines him, and Felicity finds herself wondering what kind of horrible humans could’ve done this to him. His scars are living proof that he’s experienced some horrible things. Maybe his gruff, unfriendly exterior isn’t as difficult to understand with a bit of context.

 _People_  did this to him.

She remembers the dispassionate way he’d killed the last cannibal, and even that ruthless brutality is a bit more understandable to her now.

Paul shifts back, his voice soft and kind when he asks, “Any other injuries you’d like me to look at? We can go into the treatment room and--”

“I’m fine,” Oliver interrupts. Then he makes a frustrated noise. “Thank you, I mean. But I just need bandages to wrap my ribs.”

Paul nods once, and retreats to the treatment room for supplies. Oliver half-turns, glancing back at her with a challenging look on his face. “Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?”

Felicity refuses to rise to the bait. She keeps her seat and holds his gaze. “You can tell me if you want to, Oliver, but your stories are yours to tell or not tell.”

His expression softens, just a bit, and he opens his mouth then closes it again. Seemingly unable to come up with a response, he just nods and turns back as Paul reemerges with bandages.

Felicity stays quiet, her mind racing, trying to understand this strange, contradictory man in front of her. He’s rude and gruff. He’s a protective father to his son and brother to his sister. He’s defensive and damaged. He’s a leader who managed to keep his people alive for three years. He is a collection of contradictory puzzle pieces, and Felicity finds herself wanting to solve him.

Once Paul finishes wrapping Oliver’s ribs, he helps the other man back into his shirt.

“Thank you,” Oliver says. “Are we... all set?” He gestures vaguely to his midsection, and gives a confused mini-shrug.

Paul laughs. “Yeah, we’re all set. Paper money isn’t worth much except as kindling these days.”

Oliver doesn’t move. “Then what can I do to pay for--”

“There’s no payment,” Paul interrupts, “because there’s no charge. We all do what we can to keep Starling going -- this is just how I pitch in.”

Oliver nods. “Okay,” he answers, but Felicity hears some reluctance in his tone. She wonders if it bothers him to feel indebted to someone. But whatever his hesitance, his expression is frustratingly neutral when he glances at her before heading to the door.

It doesn’t surprise Felicity at all when Oliver turns unerringly towards their houses. He’s so observant, so attentive to his surroundings. She walks along beside him, squinting in the sunlight and wanting so, so badly to be in bed. They are silent, but it’s not exactly uncomfortable.

It’s not _comfortable_  either, and Felicity knows if she were just a bit less exhausted, she would be rambling about the National Audubon Society guidebook she was reading when the world fell, and the reasons she’d started calling this little place Starling. But she’s just barely staying on her feet, and can’t summon the energy to attempt conversation.

When they reach their houses, Felicity peels off with a soft, “See you later.”

“Felicity,” Oliver says, and she stops, surprised, and turns back.

“Yeah?”

He shifts his weight, then meets her gaze. “Thank you,” he says.

Felicity can’t help but smile at him. “You’re welcome,” she answers. “Welcome to Starling, Oliver.”

& & &

Oliver sleeps slumped down on the couch, bow at his left, quiver at his right. He remains the last line of defense for his family and Helena, who are upstairs passed out in the three bedrooms, and as such, he’d intended to doze lightly despite his own exhaustion.

But when banging on the door wakes him, he’s sluggish and disoriented for several seconds, which means he’d slept much more deeply than he’d meant to. “Fuck,” he murmurs, bow in hand reflexively. He’s on his feet and beside the door quickly, hunting knife drawn from the sheath attached to his thigh. His adrenaline spikes, and he bitterly regrets stepping foot inside this place and allowing himself to let down his guard. They’re _trapped_  here -- in this house, in this town -- and he mentally considers options for getting his family safely _out_.

“Oliver?” Tommy calls, and Oliver can read urgency but not panic in his voice. “Oliver, wake up.”

Exhaling a bit of his instinctive reaction, Oliver shifts to see out the small, high window in the door. Just to be sure. Tommy’s dark head is all he sees outside, so he yanks the door open. “What’s wrong?” he demands, glancing around the sunlit, empty street for any hint of what’s going on, but Starling looks as eerily peaceful as it did when they entered. He leans his bow against the wall beside the door, within easy reach.

“Ollie?” Thea asks from the staircase behind Oliver, but he ignores her for the moment, intent on Tommy. He needs context, he needs to understand the threat that brought Tommy to his door so he can calibrate his response.

“It’s Sebastian,” Tommy says, his tone grim. “He got bit.”

Oliver’s stomach turns. He and Sebastian don’t always see eye to eye, but the man is still one of Oliver’s people. He’s still Oliver’s _responsibility_ , and has been for nearly a year. Oliver swallows down a spike of anger -- no matter how irrational it is, he doesn’t want to bury anyone else. He doesn’t want to lose a single additional person in this awful _after_. “Where?” he demands. Because if it’s an extremity, amputation is an option. Maybe Sebastian can still be saved -- bites aren’t always fatal, just _almost_  always.

Tommy gives him a look. “It’s been hours,” he points out.

Oliver takes in the angle of the sun -- it’s late afternoon; he’d slept longer than he thought. Which means Sebastian had been bitten a solid fifteen or sixteen hours ago. “ _Fuck_.”

Tommy nods. “Yeah. He’s feverish. Pale and sweaty and mostly out of it. Too late for desperate measures. He doesn’t have much time left.”

Thea makes a little noise of protest. “Why didn’t he _tell_  us?”

Tommy just shrugs. “I don’t know. I was asleep and some woman knocked on the door.” He frowns. “Still don’t know why, but the knocking woke me up.” He goes a little paler, grimacing as he considers the possibilities. “Good thing, or I might’ve ended up Sebastian’s first post-turn meal.”

Thea grips Oliver’s elbow. “Ollie, we should--”

“Stay with William,” he orders, glancing briefly at his sister. When she gives him that familiar mutinous look, Oliver pauses just long enough to soften his tone. “Please?”

“Fine,” she agrees, squeezing his arm once before letting go. Then she steps back, arms crossed, and Oliver is surprised anew at her stony strength. She’s certainly no longer the scared teenager who’d slept curled up on the lounge in the ladies bathroom on the 59th floor of the Queen Consolidated tower for the first six months of the apocalypse. Thea inadvertently emphasizes her evolution into this fearless fighter when she asks, “Do you need a weapon?”

Oliver pats the hunting knife hanging from his belt in answer, and pushes out the door. Tommy falls into step with him as they cut across the lawns -- quickest path to the small house halfway down the block. Oliver thinks through the situation as dispassionately as possible. He’s done this before, more times than he’d like to remember, but this is the nature of the world now: sometimes you have to kill the people you care about because if you don’t, they’ll turn into a threat and kill you. It’s cleaner with a gun -- easier in all aspects of the word -- but he’ll make do.

“You want me to do it?” Tommy offers, the way he always does. At least one of Tommy and Dig and Lyla have offered every time they find themselves in this situation, but Oliver knows he has to be the one to do it.

It’s his responsibility, because he’s supposed to keep his people safe. When he fails, the absolute least he can do is take on the psychic scars that come from shoving a knife into a friend’s brain. “I got it,” he says quietly.

They’re only a few paces from the door when a loud gunshot rings out, startling several nearby birds into panicked flight.

Oliver reacts instantly, dragging Tommy up against the house, crouching down to identify and evaluate the threat.

“What the fuck?” Tommy mutters, wide-eyed as he glances around.

It’s hard to be sure in situations like this, but Oliver is 90% certain the gunshot came from inside the house. The house where a feverish Sebastian knows he’s dying. Oliver considers whether Sebastian would take matters into his own hands, and he can see it -- Sebastian is a bit of a stubborn loner. But Sebastian also doesn’t have a gun.

So who the fuck is in the house? Who’s _shooting_? And _why_?

“You were alone when you came to get me?” Oliver asks, keeping his voice low. “No one was in there with Sebastian?”

“No,” Tommy answers. “But -- the woman who knocked on the door,” he shrugs, “I don’t know what happened to her, where she went.”

“The knock woke you, and then what?” Oliver demands, splitting his attention between Tommy and the few Starlingers who have emerged from their houses to figure out what’s going on. The last thing they need is more potential targets for the shooter, but that doesn’t seem to have occurred to any of the people migrating into little groups of onlookers, standing out in the open on their front lawns. “Doesn’t anybody in this town have a sense of self-preservation?” he mutters, mostly to himself.

“I heard moaning, and I checked on Sebastian,” Tommy whispers. “He was feverish, and semi-coherent, but I saw the bite -- it’s on his back. Nothing we could’ve done anyway.”

“He should’ve _told_  us he was a danger,” Oliver grits out. He spots Barry running towards them and holds up a fist; Barry immediately stops, because Oliver’s people trust him implicitly. He should’ve expected what happens next -- Felicity moves right past Barry, her dirty blonde hair shining in the late afternoon sunlight as she walks directly towards them. Oliver rises up a little, trying to wave her off, but she ignores him. Frustrated by how cavalierly she’s treating her own safety, he turns back to Tommy. “What about the woman?” he growls.

Tommy’s brow crinkles in confusion at Oliver’s attitude, but he answers quickly. “Barely saw her. Nearly hit her with the door when I ran out to come get you.”

“What is going on?” Felicity demands from a dozen yards away. “Was that a _gunshot_?”

Oliver gives up his position, moving quickly to her and grabbing her around the waist to haul her out of the line of fire. She squeaks and struggles, but he rushes her back against the side of the house. “Stay _down_ ,” he orders. “We have a situation--”

“Did you shoot someone?” she demands, shifting to sit cross-legged beside him and glare up at him, seemingly unfazed by the danger and uncertainty of their situation. He notices that she’s wearing fuzzy brown slippers with what appear to be dog faces on them, and wonders again how it’s possible that this woman is in charge of Starling.

“We don’t have any guns,” Oliver argues, not bothering to disguise his irritation. “Lyla and Nyssa had them. So one of _your_  people must have--”

The soft sound of a door hinge turning registers, and Oliver is up on his feet, putting his body between Felicity and whatever danger is about to emerge. He holds his knife by the blade ready to throw; ready to kill or incapacitate the threat.

A slender brunette appears in the doorway to the house Tommy and Sebastian were staying in. Oliver rakes his gaze down her form -- she’s well dressed, her simple slim-fitting dress almost as incongruous in this gritty real world as Starling itself. Her hair is tied up in a bun and she’s got cool, classically good looks, but Oliver doesn’t much care for the expression on her face when she meets his gaze. Then she turns towards him, and he spots the gun hanging from her right hand.

“Hey,” Oliver shouts, “put the gun down now.”

“What?” Felicity yelps from behind him, and the rustling noises tell him she’s getting up. Oliver pushes his free hand back, hoping to hold her back. “Wait--”

But he sees the second the brunette makes the decision, her weight shifting slightly, her grip tightening on the gun, and he reacts instinctively, taking a half step forward for leverage. But two small hands grip his forearm, halting his momentum enough for his throw to fall far short of the threat, the knife landing harmlessly in the grass.

“Hey, hey,” Felicity yells, and she ducks under his arm before he can react, moving in between him and the gun that’s now pointed squarely at her chest. “Everyone take a breath!”

But Oliver _can’t_  breathe -- he’s transfixed by the calculating look on the brunette’s face as she realizes she’s the only armed person in this confrontation. She’s not scared or reacting, she’s _weighing her options_ , and Oliver knows she’s an enemy.

He doesn’t know how or why, but he _knows_  this woman would just as soon kill Felicity as let her live.

Felicity isn’t one of his people, which means she’s not his responsibility and he shouldn’t feel protective of her. But he _does_. If he didn’t think it would give this brunette an excuse to fire, he would move, pull Felicity behind him, make sure she stays safe and uninjured. His hands are fisted at his sides, his shoulders tense with the effort of restraining his protective impulses.

“That man tried to kill me,” the brunette says, her finger still on the trigger and her glare shifting between Felicity and Oliver.

Oliver stays silent, following Felicity’s lead because he has no context outside of the past two minutes for who this woman is, or what she’s capable of. Felicity has her hands out to the side, emphasizing _just how defenseless_  she is, and the sight bothers Oliver for reasons he doesn’t understand.

“Isabel,” Felicity says, taking a half-step closer to the woman and her gun. “I think we’re in the middle of a misunderstanding that could get out of hand if we don’t all stop and take a breath.”

“You know what _I’d_  like to understand?” the woman -- _Isabel_  -- begins. “Why we’re letting the _dead_  into Starling.” She tips her head towards the interior of the house. “If I hadn’t been armed, I might’ve been killed. We’re supposed to be _safe_  here, Felicity. You’re supposed to keep us safe.” Cruel sarcasm creeps into her tone when she adds, “Isn’t that what you _promised_  us all?”

Felicity glances over her shoulder at Oliver, clearly baffled by the situation, then turns her attention back to the threat. “Everything I _do_  is to keep us all safe,” she argues. “You know the policy, Isabel. We quarantine anyone who’s been bitten or scratched.”

Isabel holds the gun, unwaveringly trained on Felicity, and presses her advantage. “Aren’t _you_  the one that brought these people in? You let in the _infected_.”

Felicity shakes her head. “No, we didn’t--”

“She didn’t know,” Oliver interrupts, stepping up beside Felicity. He nearly smiles when Isabel turns the gun on him. It’s exactly what he wants. Something in Isabel’s manner suggests a particular animus towards Felicity, and Oliver feels more comfortable with her attention focused on him instead. “None of us did. Sebastian told us he was okay.”

“What about the _rest_  of you?” Isabel demands. “How do we know the rest of you aren’t all infected, too?”

“Because,” Oliver grits, “we’d all be sick and dying by now if we were. Or don’t you understand how this works?” There’s a poisonous moment of eye contact between the two of them. Oliver recognizes that Isabel has clearly marked him as an enemy, so he doesn’t bother masking his frustration when he asks, “Did you kill Sebastian?”

Isabel lifts an eyebrow. “He was already dead,” she answers, “but I shot him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“He wasn’t dead,” Tommy says from behind Oliver. “He was sick, but he wasn’t dead.”

Isabel dismisses this with a shrug. “He was dead when I got inside -- moaning like they do, you know? I had no choice.”

Oliver very seriously doubts that, and he can tell from Tommy’s snort that he’s not buying it either. But Oliver doesn’t understand what this woman would gain from killing a dying stranger, and right now, defusing the situation is more important than digging for a motive.

“What about now?” Felicity asks, and the steel underlying her voice surprises Oliver enough for him to glance over at her. Even with a crooked ponytail, the faint imprint of wrinkled sheets on her cheek, and doggie slippers on her feet, Felicity radiates a stubborn kind of confidence as she stands up to this woman, ignoring the gun trained on her chest. “What choice are you going to make right now?”

There’s a long, tense moment where Oliver’s attention hones in on Isabel’s trigger finger, preparing himself to move to protect Felicity, to move her out of the line of fire. He’s _sure_  Isabel won’t be able to resist this opportunity to act on her grudge, whatever it may be.

And then Isabel drops her arm, pointing the gun harmlessly at the ground.

Felicity’s shoulders lift and then relax as she exhales. Oliver remains ready, because he doesn’t quite believe it’s over.

“I just want it to be clear,” Isabel says, raising her voice for the benefit of the curious onlookers, “that _Felicity_  is the one who chose to bring danger into Starling.” She turns a strangely smug expression to Felicity and adds, “Whatever happens next is on you.”

Oliver knows Isabel has something planned -- overthrowing Felicity, maybe? -- and he checks for Felicity’s reaction, but she just murmurs, “Well, _that’s_  ominous.” Then she turns to the curious onlookers and raises her voice, “Can someone start on a grave?” Her request seems to break the strange tension holding them all in place, and the crowd begins to drift away. Barry and Helena are standing side-by-side, waiting for Oliver’s decision on what happens next. He simply nods at them, letting them know to stand down -- at least for now.

When Oliver looks back towards the door, Isabel is already sauntering away, seemingly unconcerned with the chaos she’s caused. Tommy moves closer, keeping his voice low when he says, “I don’t know what the fuck that was about, but that woman is lying. Sebastian was sick, but he had a couple hours left, probably.”

Before Oliver can respond, a tiny hand grasps his arm and yanks. He doesn’t move, knowing it’s Felicity even without looking. Instead, he turns his head to confirm that Felicity is, indeed, beside him and attempting to tug him around to face her. When he still doesn’t budge, she gives him an exasperated look. “God, you’re like an immovable brick wall,” she grouses. Then she takes an ostentatious step to the side, moving right into his personal space to glare up at him. “Did you _throw a knife_  at her?”

Oliver’s eyebrows lift. “At the woman pointing a gun at me? Yes, I did.” His tone is probably too confrontational, but, God, Felicity gets right under his skin.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, nodding, “we don’t _do_  that here. So could you maybe try not to kill anyone when you’re in Starling?”

And just like that, all of Oliver’s adrenaline and frustration and grief finds a target. “Me?” he says, raising his voice. “You’re telling _me_  not to kill anyone when one of _your_  people just murdered one of mine?”

“She didn’t _murder_ \--”

“Sebastian _wasn’t_  dead,” Oliver interrupts, moving forward, towering over her. “Dying, yes, but what happened to _we don’t kill the living_ , huh?” He tilts slightly forward, and he can feel her breath on his face. “Difference between you and me is that _my_  people don’t kill the dying -- we kill mortal threats, and we kill the dead.”

“He was _bitten_!” Felicity argues. Loudly. “I’m not saying we should kill the dying, but I am _not happy_. He was a danger to every one of us, and he didn’t _tell_  anyone! What would’ve happened if he turned here and no one knew? How many people would’ve _died_  as a result? We could’ve lost Starling entirely!”

Oliver rolls his eyes at her exaggeration. “You wouldn’t have lost Starling.”

Felicity’s hand land on her hips. “Right, sorry,” she snipes, her words dripping with bitter sarcasm. “I forgot you don’t care about anybody who’s not one of _your_  people. Fine, so then what if your sister, or your son--?”

“Do _not_  threaten my son!” Oliver yells. Rage burns in his chest and he wants badly to hit something, to vent some of this fear and anger. Because everything she’s saying is _true_  -- if Sebastian had turned without telling anyone, he could’ve stumbled upon _any one_  of them. And Oliver knows how fucking quickly things can escalate -- how quickly one of the walking dead can turn a small group of the living into a horde.

The idea scares the shit out of him, and if Sebastian were alive, he’d break the man’s jaw for being so selfish and stupid.

Felicity pokes Oliver, right in the chest, and he looks down at her hand in open disbelief. “I am not _threatening_  anyone, Mr. Shouty, I’m trying to keep everyone _safe_ , because that’s kind of my _job_!

Behind them, Tommy echoes, “Mr. Shouty?” in amusement, but Oliver barely notices.

“I don’t know what the fuck kind of place this is,” Oliver growls, “but we’ll be moving on.”

“No one’s trapping you here,” she shoots back. And then she steps back, looking away from her, lips pressed into a thin line. She takes a deep, calming breath, and then says, her tone even, “We have a graveyard near the western wall. We’ll bury Sebastian in a couple hours.” She tilts her head, studying him. “You might be ready to move on, but you should at least let your son say goodbye. It’s important to take a moment when we lose someone and recognize their absence. It’s important we do our best to honor the loss so that we can eventually move on from it.” Her gaze slips away from him. “It’s always harder when you don’t have closure.”

His anger deflates so quickly it leaves him breathless. Or maybe that’s just the simple truth of her words -- because she’s _right_. He saw his parents die, and they died _horribly_. But he and Thea and William and Tommy hadn’t had time then to stop, to take a moment and say their goodbyes; they’d had to keep moving, stay alive.

And since he, William, Thea, and Tommy got out of Seattle, they’ve lost others, but they’ve never really stopped to mourn their dead.

It had never occurred to Oliver that the stubborn, cold, constant ache in his chest is his ever-present grief for his parents. He wonders how much of William’s quiet solemnity is his personality, and how much of it is his mother’s absence. How much of it is the weight of this world they live in, the non-stop threats and the all-too-frequent losses they suffer?

He wonders if his focus on keeping his son _alive_  has come at the expense of his son’s emotional health.

There’s too much for him to process, way too much for him to explain to her, so he jerks a nod. “Yeah,” he agrees belatedly. “That’s--

“I’ll have someone stop by when the grave and--” She pauses, stumbling a little over her words-- “and when Sebastian’s body is ready.” She doesn’t give him the opportunity to respond this time, just nodding before walking swiftly away.

Oliver remains stock still, watching her go. He still doesn’t know what to make of her, but he is starting to understand how she ended up in charge of this place. Her personality and her strength of will far outstrip her diminutive size.

“Yeah,” Tommy steps up, clapping his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, “I don’t think we’re actually leaving here, big guy.”

“Tommy,” Oliver grumbles.

“The lovely lady has a point,” Tommy argues, moving towards the door of the house he’d shared so briefly with Sebastian. “And she called you Mr. Shouty, which definitely earns her some points in my book.”

Oliver rolls his eyes, but allows Tommy this moment of lightheartedness. He pauses near the front door to rescue his knife from the ground and holds it aloft as they move inside. “Come on,” he says, “let’s go tend to Sebastian.”

As they climb the stairs, Tommy says, “Oliver, something’s going on with that Isabel person. She killed Sebastian for no reason.”

Oliver glances over his shoulder at Tommy. “There was a reason,” he says. Before Tommy can question him further, he adds, “I don’t know what it was, but you can be damned sure I’m going to find out.”

Because he’s still leaning towards leaving Starling as soon as possible, but he is strangely reluctant to leave Felicity in danger.

END CHAPTER TWO


	4. Chapter Three:  Orion

 

 

It didn’t occur to Oliver that so many people would show up for Sebastian’s burial.

After all, his group is only ten people strong, even after being reunited with Nyssa, Lyla, and little Sola. But instead of a small gathering, there are probably three dozen people gathered near the western wall where the Starlingers bury their dead. Most of these people don’t know Sebastian, but they showed up anyway to help dig the grave, to wrap Sebastian’s body in cloth, and to inter him.

The warmth of simple humanity Oliver that feels looking at the small crowd -- it’s something he barely remembers from _before_.

The thoughtfulness of these strangers is so foreign to the way he’s been living moment to moment, so foreign to the way the world has felt to him in this isolating _after_. This simple kindness offered just because they are fellow humans in need -- it renders Oliver silent and oddly reverent.

As the sky glows an orangey-pink in the west and the first stars glowing faintly in the east, Tommy, Ray, Quentin, and Curtis lower Sebastian’s shroud-covered body into the grave. They step back and a hush falls over the crowd.

If the Starlingers’ freely offered support catches him off guard, Oliver is stunned when Felicity steps forward into the silence to speak. Upon a moment’s reflection, though, Oliver realizes it is perfectly in character for this woman to do her best to turn this hard but necessary burial into a funeral ceremony. He wonders, now, how he could’ve missed it -- this quiet strength and natural leadership of hers. He thinks maybe he’s been distracted by her soft, colorful beauty. Even in a simple, navy blue sundress, her hair pulled back into a curly ponytail, and those remarkable glasses framing her eyes -- Oliver can barely takes his eyes off of her.

Felicity’s brow furrows for a moment, as if she’s searching her memory for the right turn of phrase. When her face clears, she looks around at them all and says, “At the beginning of the year and when it ends; we remember them. As long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us as we remember them,” her voice strong and solemn. Then she dips down, grabs a handful of freshly turned dirt, and tosses it into the grave.

Following her lead, Barry speaks briefly, then Helena and Tommy, telling short, kind stories about Sebastian before adding their own handfuls of dirt to his grave. Oliver can feel Felicity’s gaze on him as his sister steps up and says a few words; when he looks over, Felicity lifts her eyebrows and tilts her head toward Thea, clearly urging him to follow suit and say something.

Oliver hasn’t been to a funeral since *before*, when he was selfish, thoughtless ass. As an entitled Queen, he’d had etiquette drilled into him, but he’d never really learned empathy for a moment like this. Ollie Queen would certainly have known what was _expected_ , and he would’ve glibly offered his condolences as society dictated. But looking back, Oliver realizes he’d never thought seriously about how to offer comfort in moments of such profound loss, not even, he remembers with a hot burn of shame creeping along the back of his neck, when they’d buried Florence Dearden, and he’d stood uncomfortably beside his distraught mother, focused more on his own desire to be anywhere else than his mother’s grief.

Comforting others in mourning is such a simple, basic human kindness, but somehow it's a lesson that Oliver has never really learned -- he still struggles to support his stoic little son the way William probably needs. And he is irritated that Felicity is _expecting_  something from him that he is ill equipped to give.

But he swallows hard and says, “Thank you all for coming, and for helping us lay Sebastian to rest. He was a good man, and a brave man, and he deserved a better end than he got.” It’s not a threat, exactly, but Oliver can’t let the fact that one of the Starlingers killed a man under suspicious circumstances go unremarked. Or un _remembered_.

When he glances at Felicity, her small, encouraging smile is gone; instead, she watches him warily, and he gets the distinct impression he is running out of chances with her. It shouldn’t bother him, since he has no intention of staying in Starling.

Oliver ignores the twist of regret in his gut and turns towards Tommy, intending to help move earth back into the grave.

“Oh, no,” says an amused voice from behind him. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

Oliver turns to find the man he’d seen earlier, the man he’s pretty sure is Iris’s father -- _Joe_ , Oliver remembers -- watching him with a warm grin. Oliver tips his head slightly. “I’m sorry?”

“Dr. Paul’s keeping a close eye on you,” Joe says, tilting his head to indicate Curtis and Paul standing on the other side of the open grave, and Paul is, in fact, watching Oliver. “I assume you’re under his care and he doesn’t want you straining yourself.” Somehow, Joe’s grin widens as he offers his hand. “Joe West.”

Oliver shakes his hand dutifully. “Oliver Queen.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Joe says, kindness in his eyes. “We’ve got this, Oliver,” he says, indicating Sebastian’s grave, where Curtis and two people Oliver has never met have picked up shovels to complete the burial. Oliver doesn’t know quite what to say, or how to process the unexpected thoughtfulness of the Starlingers. Joe gives him a knowing look. “Really, it’s okay. We’ve got this.”

“Thank you,” Oliver says gruffly.

“We get a lot of people arriving here who’ve seen too much, survived too much. We’ve buried too many of them, but we’ve learned from it,” Joe explains. “It helps to let the mourners do the mourning while the rest of us take up the slack, you know?” With a knowing look, Joe takes his leave, heading back to his daughter and slinging an arm around her shoulders.

Oliver checks on his people and finds that they’re being embraced -- sometimes literally -- by the Starlingers. He’s not surprised to find Felicity and Thea talking, or to see William sidle up to his aunt to join the conversation. Both women turn their attention to the boy, and he looks a little lost as to how to handle it. To Oliver’s surprise, Helena is talking to the irrepressibly cheerful Ray and the acerbic kid in the red hoodie, while Tommy chats up a very cute blonde -- Quentin’s daughter, Oliver thinks -- and a woman who appears to be the same tall brunette from the watchtower earlier. Joe and Iris are engaged in easy conversation with a wide-eyed Barry and a stone-faced Nyssa. Even Dig and Lyla seem calm, standing off to the side with Sola playing on the grass between them.

There’s a degree of ease, the warm relief of guards slowly being let down. It makes Oliver happy on his friends’ behalf, and makes him even _more_  wary at the same time. His people can take this respite; they can catch up on sleep and sunshine and laughter as long as Oliver himself remains cautious and alert. As long as he stays _responsible_.

He’s standing there, quietly watching over his family, when Felicity sets her shoulders and heads right for him. Oliver sighs, expecting some kind of confrontation from the determined look on her face. Honestly, he probably owes her an apology about earlier -- she had, after all, stepped in front of a _gun_  for him and he’d repaid her with an angry tirade. But Oliver knows himself well enough to know he’s terrible at saying sorry. Instead, he tries to cut off her expected verbal assault with something a little easier for him to manage -- an honest statement of gratitude. “Thank you for making this...” he shrugs, “into a real funeral.”

It does seem to throw her off, at least momentarily. Felicity studies his face, her eyes so bright and so, so intense. “You’re welcome,” she answers quietly. “It’s the least we can do.”

Oliver doesn’t know quite what to say, and Felicity continues to study him in a truly unnerving way. Something about the way she watches him -- he feels like she _sees_  him. Like she sees each of his flaws, and all of his uncertainties. “What?” he asks, shifting his weight, his thumb rubbing against the pads of his fingers.

“You seem like maybe a part of you wishes that was you,” she observes, tipping her head to the grave to make sure he gets her meaning.

His stomach twists. He doesn’t understand how she can read him so effortlessly. It’s not that he wishes for death; not really. It’s more that living in this depressing _after_  is exhausting, and some days, the effort seems to far outweigh whatever small benefit there is to surviving the end of the world. Oliver isn’t one to share his dark thoughts -- even if he weren’t reticent by nature, he wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing this grey depressing outlook on life with any of the friends and family whose lives he’s protecting.

But he’s tired and still in pain and there’s something about her that pulls the truth out of him, which must be why he finds himself asking, “What exactly is there to live for _now_?”

It’s an admission, and far too revealing for his tastes. He regrets the words as soon as he speaks them -- even more so when her expression softens and she looks at him with something he thinks must be pity.

Her brow furrows and she says, “Oliver,” but he doesn’t let her finish. He _can’t_  hear whatever she’s about to say. He’s not ready for comfort, or for her unnervingly accurate observations, or even for her wisdom.

“My only goal,” he says, his voice low and careful to keep their conversation quiet, “is to keep William and Thea alive. They’re my responsibility.”

But Felicity is shaking her head at him, refusing to believe him. “You wouldn’t be trying so hard for them if you didn’t believe there was _something_  to live for,” she points out.

Her words land hard and hot in his chest, peeling away the half-truths he tells himself, leaving bare his self-hatred, his sickening regret for the things he’s had to do. “For them, maybe,” he allows, “but not for me. I’ve done--” He shakes his head curtly, intending on ending the conversation right here. “Not for me,” he repeats.

When he lets himself glance at her, the compassion on her face makes him recoil. She reaches out, so tentatively, her fingertips skimming his forearm lightly enough to raise goosebumps in their wake. “We’ve all had to do things, to _decide_  things, that we couldn’t have done _before_. But,” she continues with a shrug, “this is what life _is_  now. Hard choices are what it takes to survive. But surviving is really only the first step -- what’s the point if we don’t figure out a way to _live_?”

“William and Thea,” he answers stubbornly. “ _They’re_  the point. I survive to keep them alive, and _they're_  the ones who deserve to have some kind of life.”

Felicity’s eyes narrow with what looks like frustration or maybe anger, and she opens her mouth to deliver what he expects to be a tongue-lashing, but snaps it shut when she sees William approaching. Her dour expression disappears and she smiles at the boy with that effortless brightness. “Hey, William, how are you doing?”

William stops between them and shrugs. “Tired. Sad.”

Oliver’s hand gravitates to his son’s shoulder, rubbing the boy’s back in support. Felicity crouches in front of him and asks, “Can I show you something? It might not make you feel better right away, but it might be a place to put some of the sadness in here,” she explains, tapping her fingertip against William’s chest.

His eyes widen and he nods, then looks up at Oliver for permission. “Can I, Dad?”

“Of course,” he agrees.

Felicity holds her hand out to William, who takes it after a moment of hesitation. When she pushes to her feet, she glances up at Oliver and says, “I’m just taking him over there.” She points toward a portion of the wall maybe a football field away, and it’s then that Oliver notices that the bottom section of the tall metal wall is blocked by a much shorter slab of wood that resembles an oversized sign or a billboard, only it’s low to the ground and missing any actual signage. It’s too far for him to make out details, but the bright spots fluttering randomly along it seem like bits of paper, so he figures it must be art.

Felicity seems like the type of person to appreciate art, and to try to keep it a part of this world she’s trying to build here. He’s seen two other children in Starling -- a gangly teenaged boy, and a girl around William’s age. It wouldn’t surprise Oliver to learn that Felicity’s got some sort of school system in place for Starling’s kids.

“Okay,” Oliver says, watching carefully as they walk away. He intends to stay put, to keep an eye on _all_  of his people, but after a few moments, he finds his attention has been fully caught by the sight of Felicity’s hand in William’s as they wander towards the wall, by her blonde head tilting down towards William’s as they converse. He hasn’t figured out how to feel about Felicity or the world she’s trying to build, but he is grateful for her easy manner with William. Something in the way they interact eases some of Oliver’s ever-present anxiety.

Watching them walk away, he feels impossibly drawn to the sight, like he wants to join them.

Oliver winds up following them slowly, both because he doesn’t really want to intrude on their conversation, and because Paul’s right about avoiding physical exertion -- he shouldn’t have helped dig the grave. There’s a persistent ache in his ribs with each step, and he knows he’ll need to ask Paul or maybe Dig to rewrap his ribs before he tries to sleep.

As he draws closer to his son and this intriguing and impossible woman, he can start to make out details of the large wooden sign -- it’s made up of rough-hewn slabs affixed horizontally to two sturdy posts. The colorful pieces of paper scattered haphazardly resolve themselves into pictures.

Oliver’s gait slows. What he’d assumed was some sort of art project, something to take William’s mind off of Sebastian, is actually a communal memorial. A marker of those lost in this _after_.

The recognition sits heavy in Oliver’s gut, but he draws closer out of a strange need to bear witness. There are dozens and dozens of names carved into the wood, faded and weathered to varying degrees. Some names are in all capitals, some are neatly lettered, some have birth and death dates and brief descriptions like _beloved father_. There are some full names and some nicknames, but each and every person whose name has been added to this remembrance was loved and mourned.

And this memorial is more inclusive than the small graveyard ever could be -- Oliver knows from painful, nightmarish memories that these days, there’s rarely a body to bury when you lose someone.

Quietly, Oliver joins William and Felicity, overhearing part of her soft explanation. “It’s so _we_  remember. Even if we didn’t know the person who was lost, we know the people who are left. The people who added their loved ones’ names to this wall are our friends and our family. So this is how we help them remember.”

William is quiet for a long moment, his curious gaze scanning the faded pictures and the carefully carved letters. Finally he asks, “Can I add my mom’s name?” He glances up at Oliver for approval, and all Oliver can manage is a rough nod.

Crouching down at William’s side, Felicity rubs comforting little circles on his back. “Of course we can add your mom. What’s her name?”

“Samantha,” William whispers, and Oliver’s chest tightens. He hates that his son doesn’t even have a picture of his mother to hold onto. He hates that he can’t even bolster his son’s memory of his mother, because he and Samantha really only knew each other long enough to conceive William.

But this small thing -- this, he can do for his son.

Oliver kneels down on William’s other side. “Do you want to pick a spot? I can carve her name if you want.”

William nods, studying his options with his lip pressed between his teeth.

Felicity pushes to her feet, resting one hand on each of their shoulders. “I’ll give you two a moment,” she says quietly, before stepping away.

Oliver thanks her with a small nod, then turns his attention back to his son, who finally picks a small spot below a faded picture of two smiling men with a German Shepherd.

Oliver draws the small knife tucked into his boot and sets to work, ignoring the protest of his ribs as he exerts force to score the wood. Carefully, so carefully, he carves Samantha’s name, making sure his hands stay steady so the letters are clear and evenly spaced.

They’d barely known each other, he and Samantha -- they’d met at a club in LA one weekend and they’d spent a single night together, drunk and laughing. William is the fortuitous result of their one night, and Samantha had chosen to raise him without ever telling Oliver about him. When she’d turned up at the Queen mansion as the end of the world swept up the west coast, Oliver’s initial reaction to learning the truth had been _rage_. He’d been furious at her for not telling him he had a son, and for showing up only when she needed his powerful family’s help.

He hadn’t yet learned that fame and money and prestige meant less than nothing in the after.

Looking back now, though, he can understand her choices a lot better. Ollie Queen was a douche, and would’ve been a failure as a father. And all of his misplaced anger towards her for finally asking for help has morphed into profound gratitude. This woman he barely knew had raised their son for six years, and had risked everything to bring him to what she hoped would be safety.

It hadn’t been safe enough for her, though. Samantha had been bitten not far from the Queen mansion, defending William from two of the dead. She’d arrived at Oliver’s doorstep already starting the fatal fever, and she’d died less than twelve hours later.

That was the night Oliver saw firsthand what the end of the world looked like.

He saw the fever burning through Samantha’s body; he saw the wracking tremors; he heard the breath in her chest rattle, and then the awful silence after. And then he heard that horrible moaning, and saw the dullness in her eyes when she mindlessly turned towards him, jaw snapping. Samantha was the mother of Oliver’s son, and the first person he’d ever had to kill. He knows logically she was already dead at the time, but still feels crushing weight of guilt for killing her.

As he steps back from the Starling memorial, Oliver is surprised at the swell of grief he feels when he sees her name carved as neatly as he could manage.

William sniffles beside him, and then begins to cry in earnest. Oliver drops back to his knees and pulls his son into a hug. “I’m sorry, bud,” he tells William, even though his own throat is choked with tears. He kisses the crown of William’s head. “I wish she were here, too.”

He holds his son tight, rocking him a bit back and forth and tries desperately to remember whether William had actually cried like this when Samantha died. Oliver himself had been too wrapped up in his own numb shock over having _killed_  someone to be there for his son the way he should’ve been. It’s one of the many times he’s failed William since he met him as a terrified, traumatized six-year-old boy.

It’s been nearly three years since then, and Oliver knows that William accepts Oliver’s authority as his father, and knows William trusts that Oliver will keep him safe. This heavy, unexpected moment in the middle of this strange idyll is the first time William has trusted Oliver with his grief.

As much as it kills Oliver to see his son so distraught, he feels an unfamiliar bolt of hope that maybe this means that William is beginning to heal, to come out of the stoic shock he’s been in. Maybe William will smile a little more, talk a little more, explore the world a little more. Because Felicity is right about one thing: there’s no point in making sure William survives if he doesn’t get to live some kind of life -- a life with laughter and love and some _happiness_.

Oliver desperately wants more for his son than he’s had himself -- more meaning, more safety, more people to love and who love him.

“I think we should try to get some sleep, bud,” Oliver murmurs when William leans even more heavily into him. “Want me to carry you back?”

William is normally independent, even reticent, and old beyond his nine years. But today, he nods against Oliver’s chest.

Scooping up his son so William’s head lands on his shoulder, Oliver stands and turns towards their temporary home, ignoring the angry protest of his cracked ribs. His gaze catches on Felicity, who’s maybe thirty yards away talking to Diggle and Lyla, holding baby Sola in her arms. Inexplicably, the sight warms Oliver. He doesn’t understand this woman and he still finds the idea of staying in Starling stifling and dangerous, but she seems to be some sort of catalyst, at least with William. And if his family’s time with these Starlingers helps his son heal a little, it will have been worth it.

When Felicity glances his way, Oliver gives her a genuine smile, hoping she can read the thank you in his expression.

& & &

Felicity watches Oliver carry his crying son away, cradling William’s gangly body so carefully, and she tries to reconcile the very different impressions she’s gotten of this man. She’s seen a ruthless killer; a kind, protective father; and a threatening bully.

“He’s not what you think,” Diggle offers.

Felicity snaps her attention back to the couple in front of her and the adorable, wide-eyed little girl in her arms. Felicity may not know what to think about Oliver, but she _knows_  she likes Lyla and Dig a whole lot. And _who_  could resist falling in love with rambunctious little Sola with her corkscrew curls and warm brown eyes?

Briefly, Felicity contemplates playing dumb, avoiding the confusing topic of Oliver altogether, but Dig is watching her with a surprisingly _knowing_  look, considering they’ve only known each other a day. “He’s not?”

“He’s not,” Lyla confirms, reaching up to smooth Sola’s hair away from her face. Sola bats her mother’s hand away with an exasperated huff, and Lyla grins at Dig. “Just like her dad,” she comments, before turning back to Felicity. “Oliver has had a lot of responsibility thrust on him quickly, and he’s had to become something,” she pauses, shrugs, “better than he was. But also _harder_.”

Felicity bounces Sola up and down until she giggles. “We’ve all had to,” she says. It’s not argumentative, or meant to discount whatever Oliver and his friends and family have been through, just a statement of truth. Felicity has had to make decisions that have cost people -- _her_  people -- their lives; she’s sure Oliver’s had to do the same. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” she murmurs.

“You’re right,” Dig agrees. “The tough choices -- they go with the territory. And I’ll admit that I don’t quite understand his resistance to what you’ve got going here. I just don’t want you to write him off because he’s being particularly disagreeable at the moment. He’s been through quite a bit, and he doesn’t trust easily anymore.”

Felicity tips her head, her curiosity sparked. “Anymore?”

Dig and Lyla exchange a look, a conversation in micro-expressions, and then Diggle shrugs. “His stories are his to tell or not, but I can tell you _our_  story.”

Lyla touches her husband’s arm. “Sola needs to go down soon. Do you want me to take her back?”

“Oh, I can walk with you,” Felicity interjects. The funeral for Sebastian has wound down; only a few people are left, chatting amiably over near the wall, and Felicity feels like her presence is no longer required. Also, she’s still pretty tired and wants eight uninterrupted hours of sleep in her own bed as soon as possible. On the other hand, she’s got a squirmy, snuggly little girl in her clutches, and there’s something about Sola’s tiny warm body and trusting innocence that eases Felicity’s mind. She hugs the girl closer and smiles at Dig and Lyla. “I’m not ready to give her up yet.”

Lyla grins. “Totally understandable.”

They begin walking slowly towards Sycamore Street, along the low brick wall that used to encircle what had been simply a gated neighborhood _before_ , something pretentiously called The Glades. Starling, the refuge they’ve built here in the _after_ , began small, maybe fifteen house within the existing brick walls, before they erected taller walls and pushed out their boundaries.

Felicity has so many vivid memories from the end of the world associated with this red brick -- fear and panic and loss, but also the first sturdy sense of safety. Something about running her hands along the rough brick always grounds her, reminds her of how far they’ve come. She wonders how it’d been for Oliver’s group; she’s surprisingly eager to learn whatever Dig and Lyla feel comfortable sharing with her. Oliver is a puzzle to her, for sure, but she can’t deny that there’s something about him that she finds... _compelling_.

Well, _two_  things, if she’s honest. Personality issues or not, the man is genetically blessed, even _with_  that scruffy, shaggy-haired thing he’s got going on.

Dig touches his daughter’s cheek before he begins to talk. “Lyla was six months pregnant when the world ended.” Even now, his voice is tight with stress talking about it. “We met in the army, in country, so we both know the value of tactical retreat, and how to calculate your odds of surviving an engagement. We left the city just about when it all started, drove up into the mountains, all the way to hell and gone from everyone else. And we found a cabin.”

Felicity nods her understanding. She’d fled the city early on, too. It all started in the southwest, trapping her mother in Las Vegas; Felicity had wanted _so badly_  to head south, to find her mother, to save her only living family member, but once she and her mother lost contact, Curtis and Paul had persuaded her to head north. Logically, they were right, but Felicity is not sure she’ll ever be able to forgive herself for not at least _trying_  to find her mother. She’d still been numb and grief-stricken when they’d found this place with its stout brick walls and its solar-powered generators. They’d made it here that first awful month, to the Glades, to what became Starling, and they’d never left.

She’s heard the awful stories from people seeking shelter here -- entire towns turning, temporary shelters turning into slaughterhouses -- but she didn’t experience the fall of society the way most everyone else had.

Sola shifts in Felicity’s arms, kicking her feet a little, and sparking a question from Felicity: “So you delivered your daughter?” Then she grimaces. “I’m sorry -- your story to tell in as much or as little detail as you’d like.”

Dig and Lyla are both smiling at her, though, not offended in the least by her curiosity. “Yes,” Lyla says, “he delivered Sola.”

“That was an interesting night,” Dig comments. “Miraculous and terrifying all at once.”

“I can’t even imagine.” Felicity presses a kiss to Sola’s temple. “If you don’t mind my asking, is Sola a family name?”

Lyla chuckles. “No,” she answers, catching Diggle’s gaze. “We were going to call her Mary, after my grandmother. We planned on raising her in a small house near the city, daycare five days a week, mommy and me yoga -- all of that. We never thought we’d raise her during a different kind of war.”

“ _Sola_ ,” Dig explains, “means _peace_  in Pashto. I don’t remember much of the Pashto or Dari or Farsi I learned in country, but I remembered that. We both did.”

Lyla’s eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. “Seemed appropriate. It’s our greatest wish for her, that somehow, in her lifetime, she’ll know the kind of peace we used to take for granted.”

“Mama,” Sola fusses, suddenly leaning so far away from Felicity’s body that it makes Felicity panic a bit. She takes a big step and readjusts her grip on the little girl to keep her from toppling to the ground. Lyla reaches out and smoothly takes Sola, rubbing her back to settle her down.

“Anyway,” Dig says, shaking off the melancholy that had settled over them. “The cabin we found up in the mountains, it was well-stocked.”

Lyla scoffs. “And _cabin_  is underselling it a bit.” She meets Felicity’s puzzled look. “Three bedrooms, Italian marble in the kitchen, a bathroom the size of my apartment -- it was like something out of _Architectural Digest_.”

“Ohhhh,” Felicity says. God, she misses magazines. Or, more accurately, websites with gorgeous pictures of places she’ll never be able to afford to go to, and houses she’ll never be able to afford to buy. Sometimes her fingers still itch for a keyboard, for the simple power of well-crafted computer code. There are a few working computers in Starling, but no matter what Felicity has tried, she’s never been able to find any remnant of the internet, and she doesn’t have the tools to make a workable satellite dish to see if there’s _anyone_  alive in Africa or Asia or Europe or Australia, or if this hellish _after_  is a purely a problem for the Americas.

“More importantly,” Dig continues their story with an expressive roll of his eyes, “the cabin had its own solar-powered generator, a water well, wood-burning stove, and a ton of food. Everything we needed to get through the early months. We boarded up the windows and tried to soundproof the house.”

Felicity can’t imagine the extra layer of stress dealing with a crying newborn in that situation -- alone and aware that the dead are attracted to sound.

“Sola was nine months old,” Lyla picks up the story, “when Oliver, William, Thea and Tommy showed up. We had no way of knowing, but the cabin we’d chosen was so well stocked because it was one of the many Queen family properties.”

Felicity frowns, the reference starting to stir some vague memories in her brain. “Wait...”

“Yeah,” Lyla confirms, “ _that_  Queen family. Oliver and Thea Queen.”

And now Felicity *really* does not understand Oliver. She wasn’t much for tabloids _before_ , but it was hard to be on the internet and _not_  learn just by simple exposure about actors and sports figures and that strange class of celebrities who were famous just for being famous. She definitely remembers words like _playboy billionaire_  being thrown around in connection with Oliver and his partner in crime -- Felicity chokes. “Tommy _Merlyn_?”

Smirking, Dig nods in confirmation. “Yeah, but the guys you met yesterday bear little resemblance to the knuckleheads they were before all this.”

Felicity holds a hand up. “I-- I think I need a second to process.” She frowns, muttering, “I miss ice cream.” Because nothing used to get her through a problem faster and better than a pint of mint chocolate chip.

“God, me, too,” Lyla agrees, her tone wistful.

“Okay, Felicity says eventually, shaking off the impossible task of reconciling the brusque but maybe kind-hearted underneath it all leader of Team Arrow with remembered cellphone footage of what she _thinks_  was an incredibly drunk, unsteady Oliver Queen peeing on a cop car. “That makes _no_  sense in my brain,” she admits. “But okay. So the ne’er-do-well, next-generation scions of the business world show up on your doorstep,” she prompts.

“Well,” Dig says, “they were expecting to find their fully stocked cabin and instead they found us. We’d trespassed and eaten most of their food -- those first couple hours were tense, at least on my end, because I kept expecting anger or retaliation.”

“But that’s not Oliver,” Lyla says. “Not after what they went through getting out of a city teeming with the dead.”

“Retaliation _is_  Oliver,” Felicity argues. “You heard what he said back there -- he wants Isabel’s head.”

Dig and Lyla both go suddenly stone-faced, and Felicity regrets derailing the easy conversation. It’s not that she doesn’t have some... _concerns_  about the whole Isabel-Sebastian situation. She and Isabel don’t particularly get along, though, so she hasn’t decided how best to approach the conversation they need to have. But Felicity is very firm on the point that Oliver just randomly killing Isabel is absolutely not the answer.

Felicity and Laurel haven’t really hashed out what the Starling justice system should look like, but Felicity knows that retribution isn’t sustainable.

“No,” Lyla says slowly. “Oliver wants _justice_  for Sebastian, if justice is owed.” She holds Felicity’s gaze with determination. “But that’s a conversation for tomorrow,” Lyla relents, glancing up at her husband.

“Right,” Felicity nods, relieved that they aren’t forcing that particular issue right now. She agrees that they need more information about what had happened with Isabel and Sebastian, but she is not about to stand for vigilantism when they have an opportunity to ensure justice in Starling. “Okay,” she says, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. “So Oliver and his family arrived to find you at their cabin, but he didn’t even get mad, so you all just... Brady Bunch’ed it up in the Queen family cabin?”

Diggle laughs outright at that, the sudden tension among them breaking. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Like I mentioned, Lyla and I were military. We had skills and we could teach them, and given what they’d survived, they had more experience fighting the dead. Turned out, we could help each other. Plus, Oliver and I were both still learning how to be fathers.”

Felicity blinks. “Wait. What? William’s nine.”

Lyla and Dig exchange another one of those long, meaningful looks, and Lyla says, “That’s definitely not our story to tell, Felicity.”

“Right,” Dig agrees. “When we all met at the cabin, it just made sense to work together, to learn from each other.”

“So you’re just colleagues?” Felicity asks, skepticism in her tone. Because she’s seen the protective way Oliver relates to his people, and the much more familiar way he interacts with Lyla and Dig, like they’re family. He treats Lyla and Dig and little Sola the same as William and Thea.

“No,” Diggle admits. “He’s my brother now. He’s Sola’s godfather, to the extent that kind of thing matters in the after.”

“He’s a good man,” Lyla adds. “He’s made mistakes, but he has a good heart. And he’s not afraid to make the difficult calls.”

Felicity chews on that for a moment. She’s intimately familiar with the tough reality of leadership. She never sought it out; Starling has evolved from the early days where Felicity’s incessant talking had worn down the few holdouts in the gated neighborhood that eventually became this community. She’d talked until they’d agreed to reinforce the wall, to build it taller. And she’d argued from day one that _all_  the living would be welcomed here. And then one random Wednesday night at what they’d been optimistically calling a town meeting despite their paltry population of seventeen, Felicity had glanced around and realized they were all looking to her for guidance, for decisions.

It’s a hard thing, holding other people’s fates in your hands, but Felicity has grown into it even as the population of Starling has increased to more than one hundred souls. She understands the pressure Oliver faces when his group looks to him; what she doesn’t understand is his insular definition of who is a part of _his group_.

They’ve slowed to a stop in the middle of Sycamore Street while Felicity has been lost in her thoughts. Startled, she looks around. “Oh. Sorry. You’re home and you have an adorable nugget to put to bed.” Felicity shoos them towards the house. “Don’t let me keep you!”

Lyla nods, then turns a bit so Felicity can say goodnight to Sola. The little girl is fast asleep against her mother’s shoulder, so Felicity presses a light kiss to her chubby cheek. Lyla retreats to the house with a quiet. “I’ll take her in, Johnny.”

Felicity grins up at Diggle and mouths, “Johnny?”

Dig rolls his eyes. “My wife gets special dispensation to call me that.”

Felicity nods smartly. “Sir, yes, sir!”

He shakes his head in exasperation, but he’s smiling at the same time. He lets the moment settle, then says, “Seriously, Felicity, give Oliver a chance to warm up. He’s a man worth getting to know.”

Felicity remains skeptical, but agrees. “I won’t kick him out of Starling. Plus,” she adds sardonically, “I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be on his bad side.”

Dig backs toward the house. “Well, _I’m_  pretty sure you’ll never have to worry about that,” he responds with that infuriatingly knowing arch of his eyebrow.

Felicity frowns. “Wait, what does that mean?”

But Diggle just opens his door and gives her a wave. “Night, Felicity.”

& & &

The next three days pass rather quietly for Oliver and his family.

Helena goes to stay with Tommy and Barry in a larger house over on Cedar, leaving the three bedroom across from Felicity’s place for Oliver, Thea, and William. It’s strange, being in a house like this. They haven’t stayed anywhere so nice and so reminiscent of _before_  since the cabin in the mountains.

Oliver still can’t think about the cabin -- about why they left -- without a sliver of dread in his belly.

The days in Starling are simple -- Oliver wakes with the sun, just like he does when they’re sleeping under a lean to, or in a shallow ravine. He makes a simple breakfast for William and Thea from eggs left on their doorstep in a little basket every day. The new and admittedly refreshing part of living in Starling is the warm shower Oliver takes every morning, and the relatively new, mostly clean clothes he’s wearing.

He takes advantage of the electricity -- and an electric razor he found in the medicine cabinet -- to buzz his hair back down to a half inch or so, and tame his beard into something closer to stubble than _full cave man_. When Thea stumbles into the kitchen the morning of the first day, she does a double take, and then offers him a sardonic, “Apocalyptic chic, brother dear. Any particular woman you’re trying to impress?” Oliver pointedly ignores the barb.

The first day, Oliver stays in and around the house, letting his ribs start to heal. Tommy and Barry and Diggle, Lyla, and Sola all stop by, and they end up sitting out in the backyard talking, swapping harmless stories. It’s surreal, like they’ve slipped into _before_ , when friends visited each other just to say hi, instead of banding together for safety in a world gone mad.

There’s no barbecue, though, because Starling is short on meat, a problem Oliver finds himself pondering in the quieter moments.

On the second day, Oliver and William explore the northern half of Starling, locating the small chicken coop near the northern wall, and the herd of goats plus a couple of sheep grazing along what had probably once been a neighborhood park -- a large, oddly shaped piece of land with several trees, a random stone bench, and a faded quaint little sign that says “Echo Park at The Glades,” whatever that means.

Oliver sees Felicity only once, when he knocks on her door the second morning to ask about the food situation. She answers in faded, cupcake-print sleep shorts and a tank top, barefoot, with her wet hair drying in waves around her face. When she sees him, her eyes go very wide and she says, “Frak. Look at your face.”

“Excuse me?”

She flushes, shaking her head. “No, it’s just -- different. Your face is all... _accessible_.” Off of his raised eyebrow, she adds quickly, “Not accessible, obviously, what a weird word. It’s just you were all, grrrr, mountain man, and now you shaved and your cut your hair and you are all...” She hesitates, then waggles her fingers in the general direction of his face. “ _That_.”

Oliver is not stupid; he recognizes her reaction to him. He knows she’s attracted to him, but he can’t let himself dwell on it when he’s busy stoically ignoring his attraction to her. Because she may be the most captivating woman he’s met in his life, but he can’t see any way forward that involves staying here. As much as his body would _love_  a night with her, even just a few hours of pleasure exploring her warmth, he’s not the kind of man who would do that and then leave. Not anymore. So he shakes himself out of his unhelpful thoughts and asks her what they’re doing to improve the food situation.

She’s puzzled by his question, because Starling operates in some ways like a small commune, growing the vegetables that make up a large part of their diet out in the grassy area between the outer and inner walls, and sharing the goat cheese and the eggs and all the rest as they become available.

“I mean meat,” Oliver explains. Because they don’t have enough animals to slaughter and eat, but he _had_  noticed a few rabbit snares among the bushes around town. “Do you catch game?”

Felicity blinks. “Me? No, I don’t--” She shakes her head, her cheeks flushing. “Of course you don’t mean me specifically,” she says, her tone rueful. “Yes, some of us go hunting sometimes, and we’ve laid some snares around.”

“I can help,” he offers, without thinking it through. When Felicity raises one skeptical eyebrow, Oliver shifts a little uncomfortably and says, “I mean, while we’re here, I can repay Starling for its hospitality by doing a little hunting.”

Felicity nods slowly. “You hunt with your bow and arrow?”

“Yes,” he answers, feeling oddly defensive. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” she answers. “It’s just very... Errol Flynn of you.”

Oliver can’t help but roll his eyes. “I’m _not_  Robin Hood.”

Her eyes sparkle up at him, “Oh, I’m aware. No tights,” she teases, giving his jeans-clad legs an exaggerated look. “Plus,” she says before he can do more than flush in response, “there’s not really such a thing as the _rich_  these days.”

Oliver stares at her, wondering how she can possibly be so obtuse. “ _This_  is wealth,” he tells her, a little more forcefully than he probably should have, if her surprised expression is anything to go by. “This place,” he clarifies, trying to rein in his frustration. “It’s relatively safe, you’ve got food and water and shelter, not to mention things like electricity and hot water. Felicity,” he says, leaning in, holding her gaze so she can see how serious he is about this, “people would kill for what you have.”

Felicity is already smiling her disbelief, shaking her head. “Oliver, that’s crazy. We _welcome_  people in -- they don’t need to hurt us to come live here.”

Exasperated, he tells her, “The kind of people I mean? They don’t want to just live here, they want to take this for themselves, for _their_  family and friends.”

He can see the moment her disbelief turns to suspicion, and her distrust of him just fuels his anger. Logically, he knows he hasn’t given her much of a _reason_  to trust him. But he’s been drawn to her from the beginning, instinctively trusting her despite his reticence, which is why it bothers him every time she reminds him the same isn’t true for her.

“ _They_ ,” Felicity echoes, studying him carefully. “Is this another one of your veiled threats?”

He has to turn away from her for a moment so he doesn’t say something he’ll regret. “No,” he tells her, his voice low and intense. “We’re not staying here, and we’re certainly not going to try to take this place from you. But someone like _Isabel_  might.”

“Oliver,” she says, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm, “you’re not making any sense. Isabel is...” She pauses, wrinkling her nose in distaste, “ _difficult_ , but she already lives here. She’s not going to try to _take_ it.”

Felicity is wrong. Oliver _knows_  it, but he also didn’t come here to fight with her. So he closes his eyes and takes a calming breath. “Look, Felicity, I just wanted to offer my services. That’s it.”

“Right,” she says, her mouth pressed together in a thin line. “Thank you. That’s very kind. Just let whoever’s on watch know when you’re leaving and when you think you’ll be back. Oh, and Oliver?” she adds as he turns to leave.

He stops. “Yeah?”

“Please bring someone with you -- we don’t really like people to go out on their own.” She shrugs. “Too dangerous.”

Oliver vividly remembers too many long nights spent tied to a tree, left out in the open for any passing walker. It’d been just another form of torture, just another way for them to crush whatever was left of his sense of security, but the unintended result is that Oliver doesn’t much fear being out among the walkers alone -- not anymore. He’s acquired skills and honed his body for survival since then.

He’s never scared when he’s out there alone; he can handle himself. He only ever worries that he won’t be enough to keep the others safe.

But that’s not something he shares, especially not with frustrating strangers, so he decides to humor her. “Right,” he says. “Too dangerous.”

Oliver and Tommy spend the afternoon of their second full day staying in Starling hunting in the woods, managing to kill three rabbits and two squirrels. By the time they reach the walls of Starling, Oliver knows Tommy’s got quite a crush on a woman named Laurel. Oliver hasn’t met her yet, but according to Tommy, she’s beautiful, smart, strong, the personification of Starling's nascent legal system, and the daughter of Quentin.

The only thing Tommy seems to want to talk about _besides_  Laurel is what he repeatedly describes as, “Your obvious obsession with Felicity.” Oliver elbows his friend, _hard_ , and refuses to answer a single question about her. Tommy smirks in the most irritating fashion for half the walk back to Starling.

On the third day, Oliver ignores Felicity’s request entirely, telling that red hoodie-wearing kid that he’ll be gone until he’s back, and slipping into the woods south of Starling just after dawn. He spends a bit of time looking for animal tracks, and then waits beside a tree for nearly another hour, his bow ready and a quiver full of arrows slung across his back.

His patience pays off, and he returns to Starling with a young deer slung over his shoulder. His ribs protest, but not as sharply as a few days ago.

The kid with the hoodie lets him back in, raising his eyebrows in disbelief when he sees the dead deer. “Do you even know how to skin and prepare one of those things?” the kid asks.

Oliver glowers at him. “This is not my first kill,” he says, and heads for the house near the southern wall that’s used primarily as an industrial kitchen and storehouse. He works in solitude for a few hours, skinning and carving the animal, salting some meat for later, and preparing the balance for use today.

When he emerges carrying a few small cuts of venison wrapped in butcher paper, he heads for home. It’s unplanned, but he finds himself gravitating to Felicity’s house first. He doesn’t notice the dark blood on his clothes until she opens the door and gets a good look at him.

“Oh, no!” she says, eyes wide, hands fluttering in the air between them as she stares at his torso. “Are you hurt? Of course you’re hurt, that’s _blood_. Oliver, what _happened_?”

“No, no,” he tells her, taking her hand in his, just to hold her still for a moment. But he doesn’t let go. “I’m fine. This is--” He stops, shakes his head. “I shot a deer,” he explains, holding out one of the parcels. “Venison,” he offers. “For you.”

Felicity blinks. “Venison,” she echoes, clearly trying to make sense of things. She’s still breathing a little unsteadily, her fingers clutching at his. “You -- you killed a deer. Right. Bow and arrow.” Felicity begins to nod. “Okay, that’s-- Okay.”

Oliver takes a closer look at her, at the agitation that isn’t leaving her, that might not have anything to do with her sudden fright at the blood on his clothes. “Is everything okay?” he asks, resisting the urge to tangle her fingers with his, or to pull her closer to offer whatever meager support he can give her.

She purses her lips for a moment, studying him. Then she sighs. “I’m not sure,” she admits. “Laurel was on guard duty and she says Isabel left this a few hours ago. Alone. With a backpack.”

This is it, Oliver thinks, the start of whatever Isabel’s planning. “I don’t like this,” he tells Felicity.

“Me, neither,” she agrees, which surprises him -- until she adds, “I’m going to go after her. _We_  are,” she corrects. Then she frowns at him. “Not _you and me_  we, just -- Sara agreed to go with me, so _Sara and me_  we.” Felicity glances down at their still-entwined hands, her eyes widening and she lets go. “Yup,” she continues, the words spilling rapidly now. “That’s who’s going. Me and Sara. Because we need to convince Isabel to come back, especially if she left because she felt unsafe. It’s way more dangerous out there -- she shouldn’t be out there alone.”

Oliver shakes his head, because he vehemently disagrees with almost all of her reasons for going after Isabel. “How long ago did she leave?”

“Wait.” Felicity frowns at him. “ _You_  want to go after her?”

“Yes,” he answers immediately. “But not necessarily to bring her back to Starling. We need to know where she’s going, what she’s planning.”

Felicity is shaking her head at him. “We are not going to _stalk_  Isabel.”

Oliver wants to argue, but he knows it’ll decrease the odds of Felicity agreeing to let him come along. If she doesn’t, he’ll just go himself, either following Felicity or tracking Isabel. “Do you or Sara have tracking skills?”

She blinks. “Not exactly.”

“I can find her,” Oliver tells Felicity. “I’ll come with you, and we’ll find her, and then we’ll figure out what to do about her.” Felicity’s expression hardens, and he holds up a hand. “I’m _not_  going to kill her, Felicity.”

She stares at him for a long, tense moment. “Do you promise?”

“Unless she pulls a weapon on you or Sara or me, I will not kill her,” Oliver says, choosing his words very precisely. Because he has ways to get information from people that Felicity probably won’t like, but she’s only asking him not to kill -- she didn’t say anything about not torturing.

Felicity huffs her frustrated acquiescence. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this, but *fine*,” she says, “we’re leaving in a half hour. Go change out of your bloody clothes first,” she adds, nose wrinkling in distaste.

Oliver nods and heads back to his house to change and pack a small bag. Thea and William are playing catch in the backyard, and the sight is almost enough to convince him to stay behind. He pops out into the yard to explain that he’ll be gone overnight, probably, and to stay safe.

When Oliver, Felicity, Sara, and Nyssa head out of the southern gate, it’s mid-afternoon, and Oliver expects to be back within forty-eight hours.

They’re only three hours into their trek when they’re attacked.

 

END CHAPTER THREE

NOTE: What Felicity recites at Sebastian’s funeral is a couple lines of the poem [_We Remember Them_ , by Sylvan Kamens and Rabbi Jack Riemer](http://www.shiva.com/learning-center/resources/poems-of-comfort/#remem).


	5. Chapter Four: Cynosura

 

 

 

Felicity is not terribly happy to be leaving the familiar fortress of Starling less than four days after getting back there.

It’s not like her _last_  trip outside the safe zone went particularly well, what with all the _being captured and nearly eaten by cannibals_ , so she doesn’t think it’s irrational to be a little gunshy.

Also, she’s _definitely_  not pleased that they’re heading out in early afternoon, basically ensuring they’ll spend at least one night out in the world. Because Felicity is not _outdoorsy_. She never has been, has never wanted to be. The occasional brisk walk along a reasonably maintained dirt path in a national park was about the outer limits of her interest in rugged outdoorsy-ness _before_ , and even in this grim _after_ , she prefers the high, safe walls of Starling and the actually really comfortable houses they all live in.

She has never in her life camped in any meaningful way -- even the cannibals kept them in freezers, which were dark and hot and awful, but also had _walls_  and _floors_.

Not that she was _okay_  with that, obviously. Just -- it wasn’t camping with no physical protections. Felicity is not a fighter, so walls are a pretty important part of her being able to feel safe enough to close her eyes.

Tonight, though, she will have to sleep on the ground with the bugs. She’ll have to sleep with no walls protecting her from the dead. Sure, they’ll take turns staying up and standing guard, so she won’t be _truly_  defenseless. But she will still _feel_  scared and vulnerable.

She’s definitely _not_  going to like it. At all.

But she feels a resigned sense of responsibility for Isabel’s well-being, and also, she doesn’t fully trust Oliver to track Isabel on his own. So here she is. Wearing Sara’s old pink trainers, a slightly ripped pair of jeans, and a couple tank tops under her old, beloved, carefully patched cotton jacket from _before_ , heading out into the woods to the east of Starling with Oliver, Sara, and an incredibly beautiful, almost off-puttingly deadpan woman named Nyssa.

Felicity’s got a moderately heavy backpack on and an unreasonably large knife strapped to her thigh, and she feels ridiculous. And strangely unprepared, _despite_  the carefully-packed-by-Oliver provisions. She’s also suspicious of Oliver’s motives, puzzled by the interactions among Oliver, Nyssa, and Sara, mildly terrified of having to pee in the woods, and just basically feels way out of her depth.

The longer they walk among the trees in this strange quiet, the more Felicity worries about this open-ended, completely unplanned, directionless attempt to find Isabel. What is she doing out here? She can’t hack it out here. She has no survival skills to speak of -- she can’t fight, or hunt, or track. Particularly in comparison to her companions, Felicity is _useless_  out here.

“Why’d I agree to this again?” she mutters.

Felicity thinks she’s being quiet, but Nyssa glances over with an unreadable look. “Were you not the one who suggested this?” Nyssa speaks quietly, but confidently, her voice more melodious than Felicity had really expected.

“Oh.” Felicity shrugs. “I mean, yes, I guess I did. This seemed like a good idea in theory. It seemed like the right thing to do.” When Oliver glances over, his hard expression giving nothing away, she adds, “Finding Isabel, I mean. That seems like the right thing to do.”

“We’re trying to build a society,” Sara remarks, teasingly echoing something Felicity’s said a lot.

Felicity shoots her friend a mildly irritated look, but Sara just grins at her, unrepentant. Sara is a compelling mix of irrepressible snark and occasional dark moods. Her default setting is to face things with a grin, a sassy remark, and a ruthless determination that leaves Felicity in awe. It’s just that sometimes, Sara seems to tumble into the darkness and have trouble finding her way back to herself. When she’s like that -- depressed, Felicity assumes, though she has never pushed Sara for a definition -- Sara displays a scary combination of fearlessness and self-loathing, offering to dispatch the dead, go on risky scavenging trips, and generally court danger.

That’s what Felicity had been worried about when Sara immediately volunteered to come on the Isabel-finding mission, but Felicity sees no sign of the foolhardy risk-taker today. Instead, she sees the reliable woman who’s been one of her best friends since Sara, Laurel, and Quentin arrived two years ago.

Relieved, Felicity simply rolls her eyes and shoots back, “Yes, we _are_  trying to build a society. And despite whatever it was that happened with Isabel, I don’t want anyone leaving here in fear.” She frowns, casting a glance at the tall pine trees around them. “Leaving _Starling,_  I mean. This place,” she mumbles to herself, “we should _all_  leave.”

“May people not choose to leave your society?” Nyssa asks, and Felicity wonders what her native tongue is, since Nyssa speaks in a strangely formal syntax that seems like it belongs to another language entirely. Or another time.

“What?” Felicity asks, then immediately shakes her head. “I mean, yes, of course people can leave. But Isabel left alone, after a--” Felicity stops, glancing at Oliver, who’s completely ignoring them. “Confrontation,” she continues. “I just want to make sure she’s thinking clearly, and not running because she’s scared. No one should be out here alone,” she adds. The very idea makes Felicity shudder.

Nyssa nods once. “So in your estimation, we are undertaking a relatively dangerous mission to find this woman, and if you deem her reasons sufficient, we’ll let her walk away, and we’ll return to Starling empty-handed?”

“Yes,” Felicity says with an emphatic nod. “Exactly that.”

“We’re going to talk about more than her reasons for leaving before we let her go on her merry way,” Oliver says, his voice low and quiet. He doesn’t even spare them a glance, moving easily through the woods ahead of them. He looks perfectly at ease here in the wild, with a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back beneath a small canvas backpack, and his large bow slung crosswise over one shoulder. Something about all of that plus his unexpected de-bearding and haircut makes him even _more_  unfairly attractive, and it sets Felicity’s nerves on edge.

So she does the incredibly mature thing and sticks her tongue out at his back.

Sara huffs a laugh beside her. “I see you two are getting along like gangbusters,” she murmurs.

Oliver throws an unreadable look over his shoulder, but never slows. “If she’s smart, she headed for the river,” he says.

Felicity remembers enough about the land around Starling to know the river is three, maybe four miles away, on the other side of the hilly plot of land that was once owned by a logging company. So: trees.

Lots and lots of trees.

They trek along quietly for a bit -- quietly except for Felicity’s slightly labored breaths. She pitches in at Starling, obviously. She’s even helped build portions of the wall. She’s not _totally_  out of shape, but she’s definitely the weak link in this group. Physically speaking.

Oh, and probably also with respect to survivalist-type things.

Definitely for _fighting_.

Despite her small stature, Sara can handle herself. _Before_ , Sara had been a gymnast and a martial arts instructor, and her talents have translated surprisingly well to fighting the dead. Oliver, too, can hold his own -- to put it mildly. And as they trudge along the wooded hills, the way all three of her companions move almost silently, attention on their surroundings just confirms that Felicity is most definitely the odd person out. She’s only just met Nyssa, but the ethereal brunette displays the same cool self-assurance and graceful athleticism as Oliver.

Also, Felicity can’t imagine Oliver letting anyone join his group without, like, some sort of hazing. Like _climb that sheer-faced rock wall in under sixty seconds and you’re in_ -type nonsense.

She snickers to herself. Quietly.

But Sara still throws her a puzzled look. Felicity is saved from trying to explain when Nyssa says, “Law and order is important for any society.”

“True,” Felicity answers.

Nyssa asks, “What if Isabel chose to leave out of fear that others would learn that she’d killed Sebastian?”

“But she did kill him,” Felicity answers immediately, and she’s breathing a little harder than she has been. “We know she killed him. We just don’t know if he was already dead at the time.” She huffs an incredulous little laugh at the absurdity of her statement. “He might’ve been dead when she killed him,” she adds with a helpless shrug. Some things about this _after_  are still strange and unsettling.

Oliver stops abruptly, turning back to them and eyeing Felicity with what feels like some kind of judge-y suspicion. But he merely says, “Take a break. Drink some water.”

Felicity drops unceremoniously to the ground, sitting cross-legged and squirming out of the straps of her backpack. She digs her canteen out and takes a long, grateful sip, savoring the cool slide of the liquid down her throat. When the stillness around her registers, she looks up at her companions. Sara’s grinning at her with that _you’re cute_  look of hers, Nyssa is studying her like she’s some kind of oddity, and Oliver is still doing that blank-face thing. But he’s watching her, too. And how are his eyes so freaking piercing?

Suddenly self-conscious, Felicity blinks up at them. “What?”

To her surprise, it’s Oliver who speaks. And it’s not a command or a rebuff or an argument. “What do you want Starling to be?” he asks, which is probably the last thing she expected him to say.

“Safe,” she answers immediately. That’s the obvious answer; that’s the whole _point_  of Starling, really. Safety in numbers. Safety in a group of people who agree to defend each other from the really scary parts of the world out there.

Oliver shakes his head. “No, that’s not--” He grimaces and tries again. “It seems like you’re trying to recreate the world _before_.”

“Well, yeah,” Felicity answers. “I mean, the good parts at least. _Before_  was kind of great in retrospect, don’t you think?”

He presses his lips together for a long, strange moment. “Doesn’t matter,” he argues, with something that looks an awful lot like regret on his face. She wishes she could understand what he’s experienced that has made him so very pessimistic; she wishes she could share some of her hope with him. Particularly when his mouth tightens again and he adds, “We can’t go back. It’s not possible.”

Felicity frowns at him. “Of course it’s possible,” she counters. “ _Rebuilding_  is possible. We need to make sure we’re safe, and then we need to start having babies.”

Oliver’s eyebrow arches. “Excuse me?”

“No,” Felicity squeaks. “No, no, not--” She shakes her head, ignoring the burning in her cheeks and the muffled laughter coming from Sara. “I didn’t mean _you and me_ ,” she tells Oliver, the words tumbling out in torrent of embarrassed clarifications. “Obviously. I wasn’t propositioning you, or--” She waves a hand in the air. “I mean generally, in Starling, we -- the _entire group_  we -- need to start having babies.” She frowns. “Wait. Not the group as in _orgies_ \--”

“Felicity, we get it,” Sara manages, still chuckling to herself

Oliver doesn’t seem particularly amused; it looks more like he doesn’t know quite what to make of her, like he finds her embarrassing tendencies interesting in a remote, dispassionate kind of way.

Felicity tilts her chin up, pretending her cheeks aren’t flushed a bright, humiliating red. “We need to think about the survival of humanity as well as ourselves,” she explains, “and that means having kids. There are only six kids living at Starling,” she adds.

“This world isn’t safe for kids,” Oliver answers darkly.

Felicity huffs her irritation. “Society evolved over millions of years. That doesn’t all go away because of _this_.” She gestures vaguely towards the woods, though her comment is not about the trees, but about the dead that are undoubtedly wandering the among them.

Oliver rolls his eyes, but doesn’t respond.

The dismissiveness irritates Felicity. “You actually agree with me on some level,” she snaps, “because as much of _before_ as it’s possible to recreate? That’s _exactly_  what you want for your son.”

“You think just because you built some sturdy walls that you’re _safe_?” he demands, taking a step closer to glower down at her. “No one is safe now. Not until the threats are eliminated.”

Sara and Nyssa seem to drift toward each other and away from the argument unfolding before them. Felicity files their seeming connection away to ponder later and refocuses on Oliver’s stubborn insistence that everything is terrible and can’t possibly improve until all the walking dead are laid to rest. “That’s impossible,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Do you have any _idea_  how many of the not-dead there are out here in the world? In the Pacific Northwest alone, there must be millions. Are you going to go around and kill them all yourself?”

“If I have to.” He’s got his arms crossed, and even in the confines of his leather jacket, the bulge of his biceps is a little distracting. It’s kind of infuriating that he’s so stubborn and annoying but also so very _hot_. “That’s the only way to make the world really safe.”

“The world has _never_  been perfectly safe, Oliver. Not _before_  and certainly not now,” she argues, not quite able to keep her hands from creating strange illustrative designs in the air as she talks. “But we can make things _as_ safe as possible, and then we’re not just surviving at some sad subsistence level, we’re living.”

“Living,” he scoffs, like it’s a dirty word. “Living is breathing. It’s keeping clear of the dead, and most of the rest of humanity.”

“No,” Felicity argues, but she’s not angry with him anymore; mostly she’s sad. She wants Oliver to want _more_  than a life at the margins, surviving day to day, but she certainly can’t make him choose that. So she shrugs and says, “Living is being _happy_ , Oliver, and having family and friends close by, and laughing, and enjoying a good meal, and maybe figuring out how to make wine, because, wow, do I miss wine.”

Her words trickle to a stop and they are left quietly staring at each other. There’s something in the furrow of his brow that makes her think that maybe he’s at least considering what she’s saying. Maybe he’ll at least think about what he wants this world to be -- if not for himself, at least for William and Thea.

“That’s--” Oliver starts to say, but a dull thud and sharp cry interrupt him.

Felicity whips her head around, and sees Sara half-collapsed in Nyssa’s arms with blood darkening the sleeve of her jacket around-- “Is that an _arrow_?” Felicity squeaks, staring wide-eyed at the length of wood sticking out of Sara’s arm.

“It’s a bolt,” Oliver answers, and he’s crouched beside her, suddenly, his body like a protective wall against _whoever_  just randomly shot at them with a crossbow. Oliver’s gaze stays on Nyssa. “Get them back to Starling,” he orders. “Now. I’ve got this.”

Immediately, Felicity understands what he’s intending to do -- he’ll do the thing he and Diggle apparently _always_  do. He’ll draw whoever’s out there in a different direction to give Sara and Nyssa cover. Only these aren’t slow-moving dead; they’re _people_. An unknown number of people with unknown intentions.

Sara’s gritting her teeth, her hand fluttering above the wooden bolt in her bicep like she _wants_  to pull it out but is too scared of the pain to touch it. Her wide, pained eyes meet Felicity’s. “Felicity...”

“ _Go_ ,” Felicity tells her, glancing at Nyssa. “Please, get her back--”

Nyssa nods once. “I will,” she says, pulling Sara closer. There’s an air of desperation about her that Felicity doesn’t expect, and she wonders again if there’s something brewing between Sara and Nyssa.

“You’re going, too,” Oliver tells Felicity, gripping her shoulders tightly for a long moment. His eyes are wide and so, so blue, and more than a little mesmerizing this close. Felicity feels paralyzed by the intensity of his gaze. Then he springs to his feet and heads away from them, moving loudly.

“No!” Felicity cries; it’s instinctive, this rejection of his decision to strike out on his own. Something in her refuses to just sit there and watch him go. She’s got her backpack on in seconds, pushing to her feet and stumbling a bit as she takes off after him. He’s still making noises enough to be heard, but he’s gone farther than she expected. He’s _fast_  -- either that, or it took her too long to get up and go after him.

Felicity glances back, and she can no longer see Sara and Nyssa. A small wave of panic hits her -- what if she can’t find Oliver? What if she ends up lost out here? She puts on a burst of speed; she’s not a good runner, but she finally catches up enough to feel safe calling out for him. “Oliver,” she whisper-shouts. “Oliver, _wait up_.”

Furious, he whirls back to face her. “What are you _doing_?” He’s trying to be quiet despite his obvious desire to yell at her. “Go back to Starling.”

“No!” she argues. “If you’re not going back, I’m not going back.” Then she tips her head, wondering if she should clarify. “Right now, I mean. Obviously, I’m going back to Starling _eventually_. Hopefully, like, tomorrow at the latest.”

“Felicity!” His exasperation comes through loud and clear despite the low tone of his voice.

“No one should be out here alone!” This is one of her fundamental principles, and about half the reason she insisted they go after Isabel in the first place. How could he think she’d be okay with him haring off on his own?

“I am fine by myself,” he grits. “Felicity, we don’t know how many of them there are, or if they were warning us off, or starting a full-scale attack. I can’t move fast enough with you here, and I can’t protect you in a fight if there’s a lot of them. _Go back to Starling_.”

She crosses her arms and glares up at him. “It’s cute that you think I could _find_  Starling right now,” she hisses. “We’ve been zigzagging through the woods for three hours!”

He’s about to answer when the frustration on his face morphs into something like fear, and before she can register the movement, he’s tackled her to the ground, covering her body with his, and quite thoroughly knocking the wind out of her.

Which is good, because otherwise, she’d probably have screamed when she saw the bolt quivering in the tree she’d been standing by moments before.

“Felicity,” Oliver murmurs into her ear. “We need to _run_.”

And then he’s up, tugging her to her feet alongside him, and they run.

& & &

By the time they reach the edge of the relatively small but rapidly moving river, Oliver is half-dragging Felicity to keep her moving. He can hear the harsh pants of her breath and knows he’s pushing her too hard, but they have no idea about their attackers. It could be one person just trying to scare them off, or it could be fifty sadistic motherfuckers intending to capture them for slave labor or food.

Oliver is not in the mood to find out in case it’s the latter. He hasn’t fared well in the past when random strangers have attacked him out of nowhere.

At the river’s edge, he jerks to a stop and turns, catching Felicity in a loose embrace so she doesn’t stumble past him and into the water. “Wait,” he says, breathing deeply from exertion. “Sit,” he tells her, easing her down when she starts to drop like a rock. The muscles in his legs twitch as he crouches beside her, waiting for his breathing to calm, trying to hear any indications of a pursuit over her heaving gasps.

Felicity curls in on herself, elbows on knees, sucking in deep, gasping breaths, head dangling as she struggles to recalibrate her body. Oliver keeps a hand on her shoulder, offering support and reassuring himself at the same time, even as he keeps all of his other senses focused on the world around them. He’s searching for any hint of their attacker with the crossbow, or any other threat, living or dead.

“My legs feel like gelatinous goo,” Felicity manages, and somehow her unexpected words lighten his mood, just a bit. She is, if nothing else, a breath of fresh air.

Oliver shifts, leaning so he can tug open the backpack clinging to her back and pull a canteen free. “Drink. Small sips,” he instructs.

She nods, taking the canteen with shaking hands.

After several minutes, Oliver is relatively convinced that they’ve put enough distance between them and their attackers to give them at least momentary safety. And now they need to plan their next move. They need to strategize instead of react.

“What’s downriver?” he asks.

Felicity straightens, shifting to sit cross-legged. Her ponytail is a mess and she’s flushed and sweating, but what bothers him is the scratches along her cheek and the side of her neck. The thin red lines suggest she must’ve been hit by stray branches as they ran. It takes enormous restraint to keep from brushing his thumb along her cheek the way he might with William or Thea, though his affection for Felicity feels anything but familial.

She looks away from him, glancing at the rushing water in front of them. “Um,” she says, brow furrowed as she thinks about his question, about where they are and what’s nearby.

He knows the hesitation is a result of her inability to read the land, and he fights his instinctual irritation. It won’t do either of them any good to get into another argument right now. He needs to keep her safe, and he needs her to trust him if he’s going to be able to do that.

“We walked about two miles east with Sara and Nyssa, and we’ve been headed mostly south since,” he explains, gesturing to the low angle of the sun filtering through the trees to indicate west and help her orient herself. “Given our pace, we’ve gone almost another two miles. Is there anything along the river southeast of Starling?”

Felicity’s gaze sharpens. “Hydroelectric power,” she says, perking up. Her breathing is closer to normal now, and while she still looks tired, she’s turned her incredible mind to the problem.

Oliver blinks, processing. “A waterfall,” he surmises.

“A small one,” she nods, “but there was a logging camp nearby, so they built a water wheel generator to use hydroelectric power to split logs.”

“Okay,” Oliver says. “We can’t head back to Starling yet, not until we’re sure we lost whoever it was that shot Sara.”

“I hope Sara’s okay.”

“It probably hurt a lot,” Oliver tells her bluntly. “But the wound itself wasn’t life threatening. She’ll be fine if they remove the bolt and avoid infection. Does Starling have--?”

“Antibiotics?” Felicity interrupts. “We have very little left, but we’ve done a lot of work on medicinal herbs. The internet’s gone, now, but there were a few stray servers out there for a while _after_  running on generators, or in remote unaffected places; we did a bunch of survival research early on, learned what we could that way, then--” She breaks off, her cheeks flushing even more. “We... might have stolen some books from the library over in Ivy Town on relevant topics.”

Oliver hums, but doesn’t answer aloud. He doesn’t know what to say -- he’d approached the end of the world with no fucking clue how to make it, and quite honestly, he’s amazed he didn’t die of a random infection that first year. Or during the months he was enslaved and beaten. For as much focus as he puts on survival, Felicity had walked into the fucking apocalypse with her eyes open, taking notes and learning exactly what she needed. No wonder Starling has a decent crop system and a reasonable number of farm animals.

His respect for Felicity keeps bleeding over into something closer to admiration.

And amusement -- when he looks over at her, she pokes him in the chest. “Do not judge me. The librarians were all dead or I would’ve _totally_  checked the books out. I’m not a heathen.”

He huffs a laugh. Even in the midst of this chaos, in the middle of a dangerous situation, she somehow makes him laugh.

But he can’t focus on that right now; he can’t focus on anything but their next moves. He’s confident that their attackers took the bait and followed him and Felicity, allowing Sara and Nyssa to head back to Starling for help. The only remaining uncertainty is whether the attackers are still pursuing them, and that’s not a question he can answer definitively. At least not yet. He’s not sure what the logging camp Felicity mentioned looks like, but it will have some strategic advantages over the forest and the river, which makes it an ideal destination for them right now. “We should head for the logging camp,” he decides.

Felicity straightens her glasses, which Oliver recognizes as a nervous tic. “Right,” she agrees. “There are -- well, I mean, there _used_  to be a couple shops down there, too. A pharmacy, a little corner store, a diner. A few houses.”

It’s tempting to think of this small town as potential safety. Structures can provide shelter from the elements and protection from roaming threats, but they can also _conceal_  threats until you walk straight into them.

Oliver prefers to sleep rough out in the open, but that arrangement is a difficult with only two people to alternate guard duty. It’s nearing dusk already, which means they’re going to have to spend at least one night away from Starling. Oliver decides it’s worth the risk to at least go evaluate the logging camp and the town that sprung up around out. “Let’s go,” he says, holding out a hand to help Felicity up.

But Felicity groans. “Right now? We can’t just _rest_  a little bit longer?”

“We’re losing daylight; we need to keep moving,” he answers, almost apologetically. “Eat a powerbar on the way; it’ll keep your blood sugar up.”

With an unfairly attractive pout, Felicity grabs his hand and lets him pull her to her feet. “Fine, I’ll get up,” she grumbles. “But you have to eat a something, too.”

“Deal.” Oliver shrugs one arm free of his backpack and digs two powerbars out of the front pocket. They’re past their expiration date and probably stale, but still edible and conveniently portable. “Milk Chocolate Brownie or Caramel Cookie?” he offers, holding them out for her inspection.

But Felicity simple sighs, twisting around to dig in her own backpack. “I’ll just have this,” she says, showing him an apple. Off of his confused look she explains, “Nut allergy.”

Oliver stills, remembering stories of kids with nut allergies who’d gone into anaphylactic shock just from particles in the air, and they’re in a _forest_.

“Hey,” Felicity says, touching his arm. “It’s not a terrible allergy, and I’ve got a makeshift Epipen.” She pats her backpack.

“A  _makeshift_  Epipen?” Oliver echoes, incredulous. That doesn’t sound very reliable.

“Oh, Curtis is basically a mechanical genius,” she answers with a dismissive wave. “He reverse engineered one of them after I had to--” She mimes jabbing something into her thigh. “Someone used peanut oil in the kitchen and that did _not_  go well for me. But Curtis ended up creating several more that work better than the original. Anyway, I’d just rather not take the chance on a powerbar, since there’s not really an emergency room around here.”

The thought of Felicity experiencing a life-threatening allergic reaction in this awful _after_  makes his chest ache, but Oliver simply nods. “The apple’s a good choice then.” Putting the chocolate bar away, he readjusts his backpack and pauses. “Ready?”

Felicity gives him a shrug and a smile. “Sure!”

The trip to the small town takes them more than an hour, mostly through the woods, and up and down a few hills. Night falls as they walk, further slowing their pace; the moon is out, but not providing them much illumination considering the leafy canopy above. They don’t talk much; Oliver isn’t chatty by nature, though he knows Felicity is -- or at least she can be. Right now, she seems more focused on keeping her footing, since she’s wearing sneakers that have seen better days and probably weren’t great for hiking even brand new.

Oliver and Felicity haven’t spent much time together this way, just the two of them. Oliver’s certainly been aware of her -- hyper-aware, according to Dig -- but he feels like he learns a lot more just walking beside her. She’s smart and determined, and she doesn’t complain, even when her breathing gets labored climbing the steeper hills. He knows she doesn’t like it out here, but she came anyway because she thought it was the right thing to do. And she’d refused to leave him alone, her own comfort be damned, because she has it in her head that no one should be alone out in the world.

He doesn’t know whether to be impressed or exasperated.

He would absolutely have it easier by himself -- he can move faster alone, he can take chances with his own safety that he would never subject anyone else to, and he can consider alternatives like swimming a couple miles in the river to make absolutely sure no one can track him.

Regardless, he’s surprised to realize that he doesn’t regret Felicity’s foolhardy decision to stubbornly stick with him. There’s something about her presence that he finds both soothing and stimulating.

When the fast-moving river grows louder and the air grows more damp, Oliver slows their pace. Still, they reach the top of the small waterfall somewhat abruptly and Felicity grabs his arm and tugs him backwards, like she’s afraid he might accidentally topple over the falls.

When he glances down at her, not quite able to suppress his amusement, Felicity lets go of his arm and holds her hands up. “Oh! Sorry. I just--” Her gaze ping pongs between his face and the water free-falling a good fifty feet-- “ _really_  don’t like heights.”

He leans in, just a bit, to murmur, “I won’t let you fall.” When he straightens, he’s a little stunned by his own behavior. Since when does he inject that hint of flirtation when he’s talking to women in the _after_?

Felicity looks a little surprised, too, eyebrows arched above wide eyes. “Okay,” she says. Then she takes a half-step away, creating some distance between them, and Oliver tries very hard not to be disappointed by her apparent disinterest. “Uh,” she looks away, gesturing across the river. “Looks like the logging plant itself is on the other side.”

There’s no safe way to cross the river up here, and there probably won’t be a way to cross down below, unless there’s an old bridge nearby. Oliver simply nods and moves away from the river. “Careful,” he warns. “It’s steep.”

He takes a few moments to check the stars, using the constellations to confirm their guesses have been mostly correct. He’s not sure exactly how far they’ve come, but they’re headed generally southeast. Considering their movements have been largely the result of pursuit, and not a planned course, it’s important to keep track as best they can so they can find their way back to Starling when it’s safe.

But first they need to get through the night.

The river carved its pathway from the bedrock over thousands of years, but the riverbank is still a jagged tumble of uneven rocks, stubborn trees, and grassy slopes, meaning they have to make their way slowly and carefully. It’s fully dark, and they end up turning toward the hill, using hands and feet to scale down the steeper portions like they’re climbing down a ladder. Oliver goes first, keeping at least half of his attention on Felicity’s faded pink sneakers to make sure she chooses footholds that will support her. Halfway down, the incline eases some, and it’s possible for them to walk upright, using trees and branches and shrubs as steadying forces.

Nearly an hour later, they reach the valley floor; they’ve ended up a hundred yards or so away from the river’s edge thanks to the oblique angle they’d chosen for their descent. In the darkness, with the waterfall’s constant noise drowning out any warning signs Oliver would normally hear, he takes Felicity’s hand and squeezes, needing to keep her close to keep her safe. She squeezes back, moving tiredly along beside him as they approach what used to be the small center of a sparsely populated community. Most of the buildings are on the other side of the rushing river, and there’s no bridge in sight.

Instead, they reach the remnants of the logging camp. There’s one reasonably large building -- an oversized log cabin -- surrounded by a dozen trailers in various stages of disrepair. Oliver rules the large cabin out immediately; it’s the obvious choice, and it may already contain people -- or undisturbed dead.

Slowly, they move toward the collection of trailers. There’s no light peeking through any of the windows, nothing to suggest that anyone currently lives here. Oliver remains cautious, particularly because the churning water in the river drowns out any sounds he would’ve used to identify threats. Down one sense, he pulls Felicity against the cool metal wall of a trailer near the edge of the camp and crouches. She follows his lead, lacing her fingers through his to grip his hand more firmly. He ignores the impulse to pull her closer.

Oliver’s plan is to take some time, examine this trailer and the nearby trailers carefully to make sure there are no living _or_  dead inside; to make sure it’s safe before he risks Felicity by opening a door.

He’s learned never to open a door without knowing what’s on the other side.

It’s a good plan, but it goes straight to hell when he catches the hint of movement two trailers down and his adrenaline spikes. The slow, shambling motion is enough for him to know it’s the dead -- more than one. And considering the way they continue to melt out of the treeline, there may be a lot of them.

Unable to hear the low moaning of the dead over the rushing river, Oliver had no real warning. And there’s no time to weigh options -- the dead are close, maybe forty feet away and angling closer. They’re attracted to movement and sound, so whatever he and Felicity do, they need to do it _now_  and they need to do it silently.

Felicity hasn’t spotted them yet in the faint starlight, so she gives a soft yelp when Oliver moves suddenly, hauling her up beside him. He leans in and breathes, “Quiet and fast.”

He pulls her around the corner of the trailer they’d been leaning on, out of sight of the dead. There’s another trailer just beyond, backing up against the edge of the forest. It’s not ideal -- there could be hundreds more of the dead just about to appear out of this part of the woods -- but they don’t have a lot of options. Heading into the forest near a horde of unknown size could very easily be deadly. So Oliver pulls the knife free from its sheath against his leg and tugs Felicity along behind him before dropping her hand to reach for the door.

“Wait,” she whispers, her hands landing on his back. “What are you--?”

“We need to hide,” he murmurs. “Right now.”

Without waiting for a response, he yanks the trailer door open and launches himself inside, clearing the small open space in seconds. Two large steps bring him to the end of the trailer with the small bathroom and closet, and he rips those doors open. Clear. The trailer is empty. It’s musty and stale and small, but it’s safe enough for now.

Oliver leans out the door and pulls her in, easing the door shut and thumbing the lock, then sliding the chain into place. They’re left in near complete darkness accompanied by the faint sounds of the rushing river outside and their breathing.

Felicity edges closer to him, one hand wrapping around his bicep. “Oliver?” she whispers.

“We need to stay inside until they’re gone,” he whispers back. “And we need to stay quiet.”

& & &

Felicity can feel her anxiety spiraling.

She and Oliver are trapped in a small, abandoned trailer, in the dark, with an unknown number of the dead teeming outside. The small windows are blocked with shades, and all she can see around the edges is indistinct movement. It’s impossible for her to distinguish between the white noise of the waterfall and any shuffling or moaning from the dead, so she is stuck without _any_  information to gauge the danger they’re in.

_And_ she’s supposed to stay quiet.

It’s a terrible combination. Not knowing things makes her anxious. And anxious Felicity is a talker; a rambler, even. It’s how she processes difficult situations. It’s how she expels some of the restless energy, and she’s basically _vibrating_  with the stress right now.

Carefully, she eases closer to Oliver, pressing herself against his arm, clasping his left hand in both of hers. She drops her forehead to his shoulder, breathing in slowly, trying to calm her nerves, focusing on the feel of his hard muscle beneath rough layers of cotton.

“Hey,” he breathes against her temple. “C’mere.” He squeezes her fingers before untangling his hand. Felicity takes a breath, telling herself to step back, but Oliver shifts, turning towards her, bringing the arm she’d plastered herself to up around her shoulders to pull her closer.

She lets out a surprised _oof_  when she lands against the hard wall of his chest, turning her face just in time to avoid smashing her nose into his clavicle. Before she understands what’s happening, Oliver’s got both arms firmly around her, the hand with the knife pressed safely against her backpack while the other one slides low on her waist. Felicity follows suit, wrapping her arms around his back, adjusting to avoid the bottom of his quiver and thin, smooth wood of his bow.

“Better?” he murmurs, leaning his head down toward her.

His t-shirt is damp with sweat beneath her palms, and the frames of her glasses are kind of squishing her nose a little bit, but surprisingly it _is_  a little better.

Of course, she’s still effectively blind and deaf to whatever is happening outside, which means she has no idea if the horde is a dozen disinterested dead or several hundred amassing beside the trailer to press and lean and push until the walls cave in. She’s apparently afraid of the dark, and she definitely doesn’t want to die, and she’s scared. But all of that is a little more manageable now that she’s wrapped herself around Oliver’s ridiculous body.

Considering how intensely muscled he is, she would have expected hugging him to feel like she’s leaning against a brick wall. But he’s an excellent hugger -- warm and solid, holding her gently.

She doesn’t want to risk the things that may tumble out of her mouth at the moment, so she simply nods against his chest, then wriggles just a bit closer to him.

They stay that way for quite a long time, pressed against each other for calm and comfort, breathing almost in sync. Felicity definitely doesn’t let herself think about how good this feels, or how attracted she is to this strong, strange man. She certainly doesn’t wonder what it would be like if he stayed in Starling, if she spent more time with him and his adorable son.

It’s just that it’s been a long time since she felt this kind of _want_ , this kind of connection to a man. She and Ray are good friends, and they’d almost taken a shot at something else, but he’s still mourning his lost wife, Anna, and he and Felicity moving from friends to more hadn’t felt right to either of them. Felicity doesn’t regret that decision, and most days, she’s about as happy as she can be in this brutal _after_.

But sometimes she’s lonely.

Sometimes she misses being able to reach out for comfort. Not just sex (though, _God_ , does she miss good sex); she misses cuddling and warm hugs.

Like this one.

So maybe her wandering thoughts have more to do with her situation than the man holding her. Maybe Oliver could be _anyone_ , and it’s just situational that she feels safe and protected in his arms. Maybe she doesn’t have an irrational crush on him, an irrepressible attraction rooted in more than just his undeniable handsomeness.

Except that when she melts into him further, her eyes slipping shut despite her determination to stay awake, Oliver huffs a laugh, his breath warm against her temple, and, God, that shouldn’t make her stomach do flips. No one else makes her feel so pleasantly off-kilter.

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs, his voice low and scratchy. “Let me find a place you can sleep for a while.”

She blinks her eyes open, tilting her face up. He’s barely visible in the darkness, his eyes really the only feature she can make out with any clarity. “Shouldn’t we stay awake?” she asks, her voice rough with sleepiness.

“We need the rest,” he answers, running his big hands up her arms to the straps of her backpack. “Here, take this off.”

Her body is sending so many mixed signals -- she feels exhausted, but so, so cognizant of his hands on her body. And despite the strange lethargy in her body, her brain is still running a thousand miles an hour. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to fall asleep,” she tells him, shrugging off the backpack, catching it with her right hand.

Oliver takes the bag, moving away from her to remove his bow, backpack, and quiver. “You’ll be able to,” he answers, placing their bags beside the door before easing a large chest a few inches over to block door. Then he moves around the small space, double-checking the tiny bathroom and closet before crossing back to the small seating area. He fumbles around for a bit, then finds a latch that releases the bed -- it folds down over the eating nook, releasing a small cloud of dust.

Felicity and Oliver instinctively take several steps back, trying to avoid a sneezing fit that could alert the dead to their presence. Oliver glances at her, tipping his head towards the bed. “Ladies first.”

She rolls her eyes though he probably can’t see that. “I told you, I’m--”

“Just try,” he interrupts quietly. “Try to sleep.”

“Only if you sleep with me,” she shoots back, then stiffens. “Not-- not _sleep_  with me. That’s-- I wasn’t--”

“It’s fine, Felicity.” He leans down for his quiver and bow, then places his free hand against the small of her back to urge her forward. “We both need to sleep.”

“Wait,” she mutters, turning to crouch down beside her backpack and pull out her glasses case. She tugs the frames free and folds them, placing them in the case and tucking it away. Blinking to readjust her now blurrier vision, she stands, pulling her ponytail holder free and slipping it onto her wrist. She’d like to change into pajamas, and she’d _love_  to take her bra off; instead, she heads for bed fully clothed, without even taking her sneakers off.

The strange little Murphy bed is small, but Felicity dutifully climbs up and scoots into the corner, wrinkling her nose against the sneeze that threatens. Her eyes have adjusted enough that she can tell Oliver is propping his bow and quiver beside the bed within easy reach. He drops down on the edge of the thin mattress, and she realizes again just how _large_  he is. She shuffles back a bit more, rolling onto her side and pressing her back against the wall. Oliver eases onto the bed, one leg bent, foot on the floor.

After a few awkward moments, Felicity says, “G’nite, Oliver.”

She can hear the smile in his voice when he answers, “Sleep well.”

Surprisingly, she does. Or at least when she wakes in the soft morning light, she doesn’t remember any nightmares or restlessness. Slowly, it occurs to her that her face is pressed up against something warm, and there is a comforting weight on her leg.

When she ventures to open her eyes, she finds that she and Oliver have shifted overnight; he’s still on his back, but sprawled more in the middle of the small bed with his head turned towards her. At some point, she curled closer to him and wrapped her arms around his bicep. The fingers of her left hand lie against his ribs, and his hand is resting on her thigh.

Their positions aren’t all that compromising, if she’s being honest. And maybe that makes it worse -- she doesn’t feel embarrassed for groping him in his sleep; she feels like her instinctive snuggling against him has revealed something she’s trying pretty hard to ignore.

Sexual attraction to man this good-looking is as natural as breathing, and hardly something to get worked up over. But is it possible that Oliver Queen, this curmudgeonly survivalist, makes her _feel_  things for him? Deep, scary things?

Before she can spiral, Oliver shifts against her, his fingers tightening briefly on her leg. She knows the precise moment he wakes -- he tenses then shifts, rolling away and up into a seated position, scanning the trailer for threats, she assumes. Only then does he glance over his shoulder at her, his expression unreadable. “Sleep okay?” he asks.

Felicity struggles to sit up, running a nervous hand through her hair, grimacing when she feels how messy it is. Belatedly, she answers him. “Not bad. You?”

His gaze slips away from her and he stands, stretching briefly. And, damn, the man can wear a pair of jeans. “Fine,” he says without bothering to look at her. “I need to get a sense of what’s going on outside.”

And with that, he slips into Hunter-Gatherer mode, peering through cracks in the blinds, surveilling and plotting and planning and very thoroughly ignoring her. Felicity blinks at him, a little hurt by his strange coldness, and a _lot_  craving coffee. “What are the odds the plumbing in here still works?” she mutters. When Oliver quirks a questioning eyebrow in her general direction, she ignores the heat in her cheeks and says, “I have to pee.”

He simply shrugs. “Don’t flush. We can’t make noise.”

Felicity rolls her eyes, but follows his direction. She stares at herself in the very dirty mirror, then tries to tame her tangled hair back into a fresh ponytail. She looks rumpled and tired, and she feels even worse; her stomach is hollow with hunger, and she can feel the ache in her thigh muscles from yesterday’s climbing and running shenanigans. And for some reason, Oliver’s being kind of a jerk. All in all, she’s not having a great morning so far.

With a sigh, she pushes back out into the main room. Oliver stands beside the door, looking artfully ruffled instead of a mess, and she bites back the flash of irritation she feels. He’s already slung his quiver across his body and pulled on his backpack; he’s got his bow in his left hand and holds her bag out to her with his right.

“Thank you,” she says, shrugging it on with a low groan. She tilts her chin up stubbornly. “If there’s no coffee, I want to go splash some river water on my face before we head out.”

Oliver’s mouth tightens like he’s considering arguing, but he finally just jerks a nod and turns to the door. “Stay close.”

She keeps her grumbling response to herself, focusing on the very real dangers that may be outside this little trailer.

Cautiously, they step outside. The morning air is chilly, and enough sun filters through the tall trees to make Felicity squint. She moves with Oliver -- slowly and quietly around the corner of their trailer. However small or large the horde of dead was last night, they appear to have passed through overnight; trampled grass and disturbed dirt suggest they moved west, away from the river and the small logging camp.

Relieved, Felicity steps around Oliver, making a beeline for the river’s edge. She crouches down, cupping her hands and splashing the cool water against her face. She squeaks and shivers, droplets racing down her neck as she brings a handful of water to her mouth, swishing it vigorously before spitting it back out. It’s not toothpaste, but it’ll do until they get back to Starling.

She’s about to dig out her canteen and refill it when she hears Oliver’s footsteps approaching. He’s moving fast, and the realization cranks her tension back up. Turning, she looks up at him. “Oliver, what’s--?”

“We need to go,” he interrupts, scanning their surroundings as he reaches for her. “Now.”

Her instinct is to argue, to demand answers, but there’s something almost frantic in his expression, in the way his gaze flits from her, to their surroundings, and back to her that lets her know this is serious. This is a _problem_.

The large bow held firmly in his left hand just drives home the point.

So she takes his hand and lets him pull her up and away from the riverbank, back towards the treeline. They skirt the edge of the camp, and Felicity is more and more confused, until she notices something seems wrong with the shape of the log cabin. One side seems... lumpy? Like the patio is taller than she remembers, and also oddly crooked and a strange combination of greys.

It takes another few seconds for the shapes to resolve themselves into bodies.

Felicity stumbles to a stop, eyes wide.

Because those bodies weren’t there yesterday. There are dozens and dozens of the dead -- the previously _walking dead_  -- slain and left in that uneven, heaping pile. She shivers with the sudden realization of how much danger they’d been in overnight from the living _and_  the dead.

Which means-- “Someone was here last night,” she whispers, turning shocked eyes up to Oliver. While they slept in a trailer less than a football field’s length away, strangers took out a large number of the dead.

Oliver nods grimly. “A _lot_  of someones.”

& & &

When faced with a potential threat, Oliver is a strategic thinker.

He has the layout of the abandoned logging camp firmly memorized, and he’s scanning for movement, for changes, for anything out of place even as he pulls Felicity toward the forest. He wants to get to cover, then move fast and quiet, putting distance between them and the camp.

It’s a gamble, of course -- he’s an excellent tracker, but they don’t have time for him to assess where the living had gone, or estimate how many of them were here in the first place. Because he and Felicity were only in that trailer for about seven hours, and whoever killed those walkers might still be here -- in the surrounding forest, or holed up in any number of the other structures. They could be on the other side of the river, watching from the little cluster of shops.

It’s not _safe_  for them here, and he needs to get them out.

They’re moving, but Felicity is a little slower and more unsteady than yesterday. He knows it’s some combination of hunger, sore muscles, and shock in the face of the sheer volume of dead walkers they’d seen, but the end result is the same. They can’t make the kind of time he wants to make.

Just as they reach the treeline, Oliver’s hit in the thigh with a bolt fired from a crossbow. The pain is intense and immediate, but at least the location of the wound is non-fatal. “Fuck,” he groans, staggering sideways, nearly taking Felicity down with him.

She yelps, but moves immediately to help him, to support him as they stumble behind a tree. Oliver’s leg aches and burns, but he ignores it, grabbing three arrows from his quiver. Using the thick trunk as cover, he scans their surroundings.

Movement. Hundred feet away, around the edge of a trailer.

He fires.

There’s a loud yelp. He looses another arrow. It misses, lodging harmlessly in the edge of the trailer.

“We need to get out of here,” he tells Felicity, who is behind him, breathing hard, her hand low on his back.

“You have a _bolt_  in your leg,” she argues, her voice harsh. “Can you even run?”

Probably not, but he can’t tell her that. He _will_  figure out a way to get her out of this. “We split up,” he orders, still on the lookout for more threats. There was a large group here last night, so there could be a dozen more out there waiting to attack. If he stays to hold them off--

“No!” she basically shouts into his ear. “That’s a stupid plan and we’re not doing it. You need Paul’s help, which means we--” She stops abruptly.

Oliver panics, whipping around to face her, half-expecting to see she’s been hit, or grabbed by someone circling around behind them. But she’s fine -- wide-eyes, one hand raised in a _hold on_  sign. “Felicity,” he snaps. The back of his neck is itching with the need to get eyes on the asshole with the crossbow, but he can’t make himself look away from her.

“Stay here!” Felicity orders, and before he can react, she spins and starts running, heading farther into the woods before turning and angling back toward the camp.

“Felicity!” he hisses, not wanting to draw anyone else’s attention to her, but goddamnit, where the fuck is she going?

A bolt _thwacks_  into the tree beside him from a different angle and he whirls to the side, nocking and releasing an arrow without conscious thought. He sees a body fall and shifts around the tree a bit. He’s keeping most of his weight on his good leg, which is affecting his accuracy -- he’s pretty sure the guy he just dropped isn’t actually dead.

The original shooter fires again and Oliver returns, loosing two arrows in quick succession. He staggers to another tree, looking for Felicity before turning back. There’s more movement; more _people_ , and Oliver is not liking these odds. There must be at least three of them, could be many more. He’s an excellent marksman, but he’s down to a little over a dozen arrows. He’s also a brutal, efficient fighter when he’s healthy, but right now he’s got a leg that won’t fully support him and an obvious weakness to be exploited.

“Fuck,” he says, trying not to let himself think of William, of Thea.

He leans a few degrees, holding an arrow nocked until -- something blue moves; he aims and releases. Hits the mark.

Oliver’s just about to ease back, move a little more in the direction Felicity’d disappeared to when he hears what sounds like -- an _engine_  turning over? What the hell?

The attackers pause, too, probably also thrown by a familiar but unusual noise. Cars run on gasoline, which rendered them mostly useless when the tanks at gas stations ran dry not long into the _after_.

But that’s _definitely_  an engine, and on something large, like a truck. The engine whines, its pitch revving higher as whoever’s driving it pushes it to its limits.

And then Oliver sees an old bus hurtling along in the small, mostly flat area between the forest’s edge and the riverbank. Hurtling _backwards_ , which makes everything even more surreal.

When the bus slides to an unsteady stop not twenty feet from him, Oliver knows it’s Felicity.

Still, he stares at the bus in slack-jawed surprise for a long moment.

She sticks her arm about the window and yells, “Come on!”

Oliver runs, limping badly and trying to cover himself by letting a couple more arrows go as he moves. A crossbow bolt whizzes past him and glances off the edge of the bus, and then Oliver’s on the other side, nearly sliding into the river as he runs for the door.

Every other step is agony as his muscles bunch and release around the sharp bolt in his leg, but he makes it to the door and practically throws himself inside. He lands on the second stair and turns, wedging his good foot alongside the door and bringing his bow around.

“Okay,” Felicity says. “Now let me just...”

She’s struggling with something, he can hear her little grunts of exertion. “Felicity?”

“Yes!” she yells.

He glances over his shoulder at her, more than a little surprised to see the wide grin on her face and a fist raised in triumph, since they’re still sitting there, unmoving, practically inviting an attack from the assholes with crossbows. “Felicity?” he prompts.

“Oh, right!” she answers, scrunching her nose and dropping her hand to the steering wheel. “Sorry. The gearshift is a little bit rusted and _stuck_ , but I got it.” And then she slams her foot on the gas, and the bus lurches sideways, nearly dumping them into the river before Felicity corrects their trajectory. “Not one word about women drivers,” she warns, accelerating away from the logging camp and the threats it holds. They scrape more than a few shrubs, and come very close to the riverbank and some unforgiving trees, but in a few minutes, Felicity eases the bus to the left and out of nowhere, they’re on the relatively smooth surface of a dirt logging road.

Oliver’s hurt and hungry and concerned that the crossbow brigade might be a threat to Starling, but when he shifts, turning to climb painstakingly up to Felicity’s level so he can sit properly and tend to his wound, she glances over him with a relieved smile. “So,” she drawls cheerfully, “let’s never do that again!”

 

END CHAPTER FOUR

 

 


	6. Chapter Five: Pyxis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have reached the end of Volume I of this story. Thank you so much for coming along on the ride with me, and I hope you’ll join me for Volume II once I write it. :) 
> 
> NOTE: Huge thanks to punchdrunkdoc for the medical/treatment guidance in this chapter! Any errors are mine.

 

 

Driving a bus isn’t something Felicity’s ever tried before.

She learns quickly that driving an big, aging bus over narrow, bumpy dirt logging roads while flooded with adrenaline is _difficult_. It definitely doesn’t help that she hasn’t driven _at all_  in nearly three years, either -- she feels rusty and awkward, and the bus is reluctant to bend to her will.

But the most stressful part is that Oliver is hurt, so she needs to keep this stupid monster bus moving as smoothly as possible to keep from jostling him unnecessarily.

Obviously slower would be better, jostle-wise, but they don’t really have a lot of time. Oliver needs medical attention, and there are a whole bunch of jerks with crossbows at the logging camp, and she has _no idea_  where this stupid road even _goes_ , or whether it intersects with Route 718, or Lawrence Road, or any of the other ways she knows to get back to Starling.

Her mind whirls, considering plans and rejecting panic-induced images of Oliver bleeding out, of Oliver dying while she can’t do anything to help. She’s lost people; of _course_  she’s lost people. She’s seen people die in front of her, and it’s awful every single time. But the thought of _Oliver_  dying is so much worse -- it ties her insides up in knots.

She can’t think about why that is, so she white-knuckles the steering wheel of the really, stupidly large bus, taking curves too fast and trying to avoid the larger ruts in the road.

Oliver, who’d pulled himself into the closest seat behind her, his bad leg sprawled out along the aisle, leans closer and says, “It’s okay, Felicity.” His voice helps push back the more gruesome possibilities. In fact, he sounds calmer than she feels, his voice only slightly gravel-ier than normal, which she assumes is from pain. He wouldn’t sound so calm if he were actively bleeding out, right? “We’ve gone at least a mile,” he adds.

That doesn’t mean all that much to her, considering she doesn’t know what direction they’re going in reference to Starling. Her stomach knots with fear.

“You’re still injured,” she points out, her voice high and a little thready. “You still need Paul.” She would normally pair this admonishment with a _look_ , but she can’t spare him a glance since they’re rapidly approaching what looks like the edge of the world, the road seemingly dropping away in nauseating fashion. She jams on the brakes, lurching nearly to a stop until they have a better perspective on the road before them -- it’s a steep downhill grade, with a curve to the left. It’s not a cliff, at least. “I don’t like this,” she mutters.

“You’re doing fine,” Oliver says, his big hand landing on her shoulder with a brief, comforting squeeze.

“My last car was a Mini Cooper,” she laments. “ _That_  I could drive around up here no problem.”

Oliver snorts. “You would’ve lost a Mini in any number of those potholes back there,” he points out. It’s the first time he’s ever really even tried to joke with her, and she appreciates the effort.

“Pssshhhh,” Felicity answers, then puts all of her focus on the steep grade, easing the bus downhill, despite feeling like gravity could take the control away at any second. “You’re not supposed to ride your brakes downhill, right?” she mutters. “Does that count in a ginormous bus? Probably it doesn’t. Force equals mass times acceleration, so we’ll definitely crash big if we crash. Plus,” she adds quietly, “no seatbelts. Frak.”

“We’re not going to crash,” Oliver says, and he actually sounds kind of amused, which she does _not_  get, since they are going irresponsibly fast down this hill in a rickety old bus with a brake system she’s putting an _awful_  lot of faith in, _plus_  he’s the one with the gaping wound.

“Where are we?” she asks him. Because whatever meager navigational skills she possesses definitely aren’t honed enough to have registered much about their desperate flight from the logging camp. Her best guess is that they’d gone, directionally speaking, _away_  from the guys with crossbows. The morning sun seems to be behind them, which means they’re going mostly west at the moment. Probably. “What direction do I need to turn?”

“Right is good when we get the chance,” Oliver answers, “and downhill is good. There’s probably a real road in the valley, and we can figure out the rest.”

That sounds promising. Felicity accelerates a bit as the road levels out, eyeing the distressingly low gas gauge with suspicion. Nothing she can do about that, so she asks, “How’s your leg?” Because there’d been kind of a gross amount of blood on his pants when he’d jumped onto the bus -- not to mention a _crossbow bolt_  in his _leg_  -- and she’s frankly a little concerned.

“It’s fine,” Oliver answers. Gruffly. The way he does a lot of things, except Felicity is pretty sure the man who’d stood in a dirty old trailer and hugged her for a long, long time is the _true_  Oliver. She’s certain, now, that there’s a kind, loving heart beneath his crusty exterior.

“Should we stop for a bit?” she asks. “Wrap your leg or something?”

“Already did that,” he answers.

They’re on a relatively straight section of the road so she half-twists to take a quick look. His bag, quiver, bow, and jacket lie in a heap on the floor by his feet, and he’s shirtless. She blinks stupidly for a moment at the sight -- because he _is_  a sight -- before realizing the makeshift bandage of dark blue fabric around his thigh is his shirt. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he answers, lifting his hand to draw her attention to--

“You _yanked it out_?” she yelps, stopping the bus short. He grimaces as he braces himself with a hand on the back of his seat. “Sorry,” she apologizes, stomach churning as she points at the blood-stained bolt in his hand. _So gross_. “You yanked it out _while we were driving_?”

“You’re driving,” he points out. “I’m just sitting here.”

“I could’ve helped,” she protests, though she’s not entirely sure that’s true. Bloody wounds -- not really her favorite thing. But removing a giant foreign object from where it’s lodged in his leg seems like something that _should_  require two people. It hurts her heart that he’s able to inflict so much pain on himself without making a peep, and it makes her wonder again about the scarring on his torso. What happened to this man?

When she meets his gaze, his expression is shuttered, as if he can tell what she’s wondering about and it bothers him. Chastened, she drops her gaze to his leg. The material of his cargo pants is dark and wet beneath the makeshift bandage and she frowns. “Did it bleed a lot?”

“Yes,” he answers, “but I’d already be dead if it hit my femoral artery.” Felicity feels both faint and nauseated at his casual proclamation. He leans slightly towards her, his tone softening when he adds, “I’m fine. I rinsed it with the last of my water, so we’ll need to conserve.”

“Or,” Felicity answers as she jerks back around and floors it, “we’ll have to get back to Starling _faster_  so you can get some actual treatment for the giant hole in your leg.”

They continue on in silence for a bit, until she sees glorious pavement directly ahead. The logging road intersects with an actual, for-real road, and when she eases them to a stop -- to check for non-existent traffic -- she takes a moment to clap for their good luck. Behind her, Oliver huffs a laugh. She flushes, puts her hands back on the wheel, and turns right.

Winding their way back toward Starling takes some effort, since they’re not exactly sure where they popped out of the forest. Once they figure it out -- or, more accurately, once Oliver explains that they need to head northwest-ish until they see more familiar landmarks -- they make their way closer and closer to Starling until the inevitable sputtering of the engine announces an empty gas tank and the end of their transportation luck.

“Frak,” Felicity mutters, angling the bus to the shoulder and forcing the gearshift into park just before the engine stutters to a stop.

There’s a long moment of silence.

Felicity shifts in the old, surprisingly cushion-y seat, turning to face Oliver. He’s digging through his bag, tugging out a t-shirt and pulling it over his head. Felicity’s gaze follows the shifting muscle in his arms, then she looks away. She really needs to stop ogling him.

“So what now?” she asks.

“Now we walk,” Oliver answers.

Felicity stands immediately, moving closer and glaring down at him. “Are you kidding me? You can’t walk back on that leg!”

He gives her an exasperated look. “Not a lot of other options, Felicity.”

“I can...” She gestures vaguely behind her. “You can stay here, in the bus, and I can go for help.”

“No,” he answers. “You could get lost. We’re walking back together.”

She gives him her best stubborn look, but he simply pushes himself to his feet, inches from her. “How far do you think we are from Starling?” she asks. Oliver sighs, stepping sideways and leaning down grab his jacket and shrug it on. Before he can lift his quiver, bag, and bow, Felicity picks them up and steps back. He glowers at her, and she glares right back. “How far?”

“A few miles at least,” he answers. “We came down the south side of the hill from the logging camp and have been circling around.” He holds out his hand for his stuff.

“You can walk a few miles?” she asks doubtfully, her eyes on his leg. “That looks pretty bad.”

His expression turns to stone. “I’ve survived worse.”

Before she can come up with a response, he’s pulled the quiver from her numb hands and looped it on, tugging his backpack free and doing the same before holding an impatient hand out for his bow.

Irritably, she slams it into his palm, then turns to gather up her own bag, which somehow slid most of the way under the driver’s seat. By the time she retrieves it, Oliver’s outside the bus and limping down the center of the street, following the faded double yellow lines.

“Stubborn jerk,” she mutters. But as irritated as she feels, she makes sure to catch up quickly so neither of them have to be out in the wilderness alone.

& & &

They follow the narrow road, twisting and turning, trudging up and down a few hills. They see no one, walking along the dusty shoulder, penned in on either side by the forests.

Oliver limps along beside Felicity, gritting his teeth against the pain in his bad leg and doing his best to constantly reassess the situation.

It’s not great.

He ate his last two powerbars this morning while Felicity was washing up in the river, and now he’s hungry, tired, thirsty, and in a considerable amount of pain. Felicity is all of the same -- except for the pain, thank God -- and they’ve got quite a journey ahead of them if they’re going to make it back to Starling in one piece.

He’s still not precisely sure where they are relative to Starling, but it’s at least a few more miles roughly north-northwest. Oliver’s injury is keeping them from making good time, and there are any number of threats -- living and dead -- between them and safety.

But Oliver _will_  get Felicity back safely. He promised himself that before they even left Starling, and he’s only more determined now. He’s not sure what it is about her that draws him in so effortlessly. He doesn’t know her all that well, but she’s already _important_  to him.

It makes no sense -- he looks at the world and divides it into _his_  people and everyone else. His people are his family, plus the rest of the group that’s come together along the way. They’re who he’d give his life for, without question; people whose lives he will protect above all else. His people are, quite frankly, the reason he’s made it this far.

Felicity, though -- she’s not _his_. She’s not looking to him for protection, or trying to join his small group of survivors. She’s perfectly happy (and safer than he’d suspected at first) in Starling. She’s got roots and her _own_  people to look after.

Still, he knows already that he would die for her.

What he doesn’t fully understand yet is _why_.

She is brightness and happiness and optimism, even now as they hike through the forest without food and with very little water. She’s made no secret of the fact that she’d much prefer to stay within Starling, and she’s clearly not comfortable out here in the woods -- but she’s still moving with a certain bounce in her step, an unsinkable spirit that fascinates him. Her presence does something to him; it makes him feel just a little more at ease than he’s used to. Even now.

They’ve been trudging along for a while, making terrible time on an incline because he has to take small, limping steps with his injured leg. He’s listening for footsteps, for the moaning of the dead, and he’s scanning for movement, for visible threats, all the while trying his damnedest to just keep going forward. When he feels Felicity’s hand on his arm, he realizes he’s stopped, staring blankly at the incline ahead of them. He blinks back to the present with a burst of panic -- it’s getting harder to stay focused, to stay alert and aware of their surroundings. Inattention can so easily turn into a fatal mistake, and he is angry with himself for the slip. But the material of his cargo pants is wet with blood, and he knows enough about injuries to know the blood loss and his trouble focusing are related.

“Let’s stop,” Felicity suggests, her tone a lot softer than back in the bus. “Have a drink. Eat something.”

“All out of food and water,” he points out. Oliver runs a hand over his face, then scrubs through his hair, trying to gather his strength and his stubborn determination. His legs are weak, his body fatigued, and he’s concerned if he sits down he’ll have trouble getting back up. In fact, now that they’ve stopped, even the idea of starting to put one foot in front of the other again seems overwhelmingly difficult.

Felicity tilts her head, drawing and holding his attention. “Didn’t anyone teach you about sharing in kindergarten? And anyway,” she adds before he can protest that she needs to stay hydrated and fueled up, “We can at least _rest_.”

Oliver’s exhausted, suddenly. He’s not bleeding heavily, but it’s steady enough that the cumulative effects are starting to get dangerous. He remembers this feeling, remembers the sickening sensation of warm blood sliding down his back, leaving him sapped and weak and tied to that fucking tree that still haunt his nightmares.

It’s not a helpful thought, so Oliver shoves it away, pushes it back down and does his best to ignore it. Which works about as well as it usually does.

Nodding his acquiescence, he pulls off his bow and tilts into a sturdy tree trunk. He slides down to sit, his jacket catching and ripping a bit on the rough bark, but he can’t find it in himself to care. It’s nearly noon, and they’re not making progress. Not enough, anyway. “This is my fault,” he mutters, and Felicity nearly chokes on her water.

“Did you shoot yourself in the leg?” she demands through a bout of coughing. She’s still standing, backpack dangling from one arm as she glares down at him.

“I didn’t pack enough provisions, and I’m out of water,” he answers, frustrated with himself, again, for blithely assuming he’d be able to hunt any additional food they’d need. There are supposed to be four of them out here, and he’s not supposed to be hurt. But he _knows_  better than to assume anything will go to plan. Fuck. The spark of anger clears his head, anchors him to the present a little more than he’s been feeling. “I can’t protect you like this,” he adds, slapping his thigh above the injury.

Felicity drops to the ground at his side, wriggling around so she’s facing him, sitting cross-legged. “Look, none of this is your fault,” she says, simply raising her voice to talk over him when he tries to interrupt. “We were attacked, and separated from Sara and Nyssa, and you did a brave thing leading the Evil Crossbow-ers away. We found shelter, got some rest, and then we were attacked again.” She shrugs. “You’ve done _nothing_  wrong.”

“I’ve done a _hundred_  things wrong,” he argues, suddenly, inexplicably furious. He leans closer. “You saw my scars -- you can guess what’s been done to me, and what I’ve done in response.” She opens her mouth to argue, and he lets his voice get louder. “I’m not a nice person, Felicity, don’t misunderstand that. But whatever I’ve become, it helps me protect the people around me. Except that I can’t _do_ that right now -- not like this. I can’t protect you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” she snaps. Then she wrinkles her nose and concedes, “At least not right this second. I definitely appreciate all the protecting-me you did at the logging camp, even if I _did_  protect you right back.” She gives him a proud little grin, and just like that, his anger spills away, leaving behind an ache he can’t quite name. She studies his face, and he is sure in this moment that she understands him better than he understands himself. She touches his shoulder tentatively, her fingers squeezing ever so gently, and says, “Right now, I just need you to rest and drink water and eat a little something, and then we’re going to walk the rest of the way back to Starling and get Paul to fix your leg.” She says it like it’s easy, like it’s even possible at this point.

Oliver holds her gaze and keeps his voice dispassionate. “We need to be realistic.”

“I _am_ being realistic,” she counters stubbornly. “Whereas _you’re_  being--”

“Listen,” he interrupts. “The only thing that matters right now is that I’m slowing you down.” She’s already shaking her head. “ _Yes_ , Felicity. You have to go. I’ll be fine.”

“I will not just _go_ and leave you here,” she argues, punctuating her point with a smack to his bicep. “I can’t believe you would even _suggest_  that.”

Oliver drops his head back against the rough bark, lets his eyes drift close. He breathes in and out a few times, summoning patience. Because they’ve argued a few times since they’ve met, and it’s gotten them nowhere. He’s learned she doesn’t respond well to demands or orders, so he needs to figure out how to persuade her instead.

Felicity’s hand lands gently on his arm this time, and she sounds worried when she asks, “Oliver? Are you okay?”

He rolls his head to the side, meeting her gaze. When he speaks, his voice is quiet and serious, because he needs her to really _hear_  what he’s saying. “I’m losing blood. I’m not gonna be able to keep up with you, and you need to be safe and _go back to Starling_.”

Wide blue eyes focus on his leg, and then she’s reaching for him, hands trembling as she touches the dark, wet material. “Oliver,” she whispers. “I didn’t -- I didn’t realize you were _still bleeding_.” The anguished look she gives him would’ve toppled him over if he weren’t already on the ground. And then it’s gone, replaced with a fierce determination. “On your back,” she orders.

Oliver blinks. “What?”

“Lie back and we’re going to prop your leg up.” She frowns at him, her nose crinkling. “Isn’t that a thing? Or is that snake bites? No, wait, snake bites is keep the wound _below_ the heart?” Her words begin to tumble out faster. “We need to do _something_ ,” she tells him, her hands curling around his bicep, clutching at the leather. “I mean, there’s only so much blood in the human body, and you’re _not allowed_  to keep losing yours!”

“Felicity,” he says, covering her hand with his and squeezing. “Listen, I can’t keep walking. It’s making things worse.”

Tears swim in her eyes and she whispers his name in this heartbreaking way that he can’t really handle.

Oliver leans closer, their faces just inches apart. “I can’t keep walking,” he repeats, “but you can. You need to _go_.”

“No one should be out here alone,” she tells him, and he’s honestly not sure whether she’s more scared for herself or for him. Then she turns her hand beneath his, tangling their fingers together and squeezing. Hard. “I can’t leave you here. You can’t defend yourself, and--”

“I have my bow,” he tells her. “And a knife.”

She’s already shaking her head. “No. Oliver, you’re losing blood, which means you could--” She chokes, unable to finish the thought.

She’s not wrong; Oliver knows he could die here. There’s only so much blood the body can lose and still keep functioning, and while he’s only exhibiting signs of mild shock now, there’s no telling how much longer before his situation worsens. Not to mention that his large recurve bow is at _best_  awkward and imprecise when he’s sitting propped against a tree. All things considered, he’s really only able to defend himself in close quarters right now, except close quarters requires strength and quickness and he doesn’t have much of either at the moment. But the bottom line is that waiting for help is a better option than walking until his body gives out.

“Felicity,” he says, “I can’t keep going, and you can’t stay. Go to Starling. Send Diggle and Tommy back for me.”

She bites her lip, studying him. “That feels like choosing to save myself and abandon you,” she protests quietly. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“If it comes down to any kind of choice, it’ll always be you,” he says.

Her mouth drops open, her cheeks flushing with surprise and something he can’t quite identify. Oliver replays what he’s just said and can’t believe he has so little control over himself right now. He doesn’t say things like that, even to his family. It’s implied, of course, but he is pretty terrible at expressing himself with words.

“What?” she breathes. “Oliver--”

“Just, please,” he interrupts. “If Dig can’t find me, or if--”

“ _No_ ”

“--something else happens,” Oliver continues urgently, “you have to tell William that I tried, that he’s strong, and that I love him.”

She shakes her head again. “No, you’re going to tell him yourself, Oliver. Your son needs you, and you’re going to wait right here -- _right here_  -- for just a little longer, and then I’ll be back with Dig and Tommy and Paul.”

He gives her a smile, and hopes he can read his forgiveness in it; whatever happens, he can’t let her bright light be dimmed by him. “I know you’ll do your best, but if--”

“ _No_ ,” she interrupts. Loudly. “You’re not allowed to talk like that,” she admonishes, tightening her grip on his hand. “You’re not allowed to _think_  that, either,” she adds, quirking a suspicious eyebrow at him, like she can hear his pessimistic thoughts. She releases his hand, her palms landing warm on his cheeks, and she’s so _beautiful_  up close that he stops breathing, everything that he is suddenly laser-focused on her. She leans a bit closer. “You have one job while I’m gone, and that is to stay right here and stay safe. Okay?” Then she tips her head to the side and adds, “And _stop bleeding_. So two jobs.”

Oliver can’t help it, he huffs a laugh, his gaze tracing her face. She’s gorgeous and quirky and fierce, and maybe he should blame it on the injury or the pain or the blood loss, but in this moment, he doesn’t have the willpower to suppress his urge to kiss her.

He sits up, closing the distance between them until he can feel her warm breath against his lips when she exhales in surprise. Eyes sliding shut, he whispers her name, and then her hands on his cheeks pull him the last little distance and her lips are on his.

They linger at first, lips just pressed softly together, until Felicity shifts against him. She slides one hand around to the back of his head, and then she sinks into the kiss, pulling him headlong into bliss. Her lips move against his so perfectly -- insistent and patient and warmly welcoming. He finds himself clutching at her jacket, wanting her closer, needing her pressed right up against him.

As she kisses him, the rest of it fades into the background -- the pain in his leg, the danger of the situation, hell, even the very hopelessness of this ruinous _after_  recedes into the background. For the first time in years, Oliver feels what he can only describe as peace. He revels in it, losing himself in this kiss, in the slide of her tongue against his, the little groan he coaxes from her when he lets himself nip that plump bottom lip of hers.

Too soon, she’s pulling back, breathing hard as she braces herself with her hands on his shoulders. She’s on her knees beside him, watching him with eyes wide behind her glasses. He can feel the dopey grin on his face and can’t seem to do a thing about it.

The moment lingers, a slow, warm _awareness_  hanging between them, and then Felicity is moving. She’s a flurry of panicked activity -- jumping to her feet, muttering under her breath, yanking her backpack on.

“Felicity,” Oliver says.

She whirls to face him, the urge to flee evident in every coiled line of her body.

“I’ll be back,” she tells him. Then she points an insistent finger at him. “You better be _right here_.” He nods, but before he can come up with anything better to say, she announces, “We’re not saying goodbye,” and sets off down the road.

Oliver watches her walk away, memorizing her form until the curve of the road takes her away from him.

& & &

The rest of the trek back to Starling passes for Felicity in a panicky haze.

She’s anxious about too many different things to focus on just one for very long. Like the fact that she’s out here alone with only a hunting knife to defend herself. Also Oliver needs medical attention as soon as possible and she’s the only one who can make that happen. Plus she doesn’t know precisely where she’s going and she’s convinced with every step that she’s chosen wrong and will end up delaying getting Paul to Oliver. And, of course, _she kissed Oliver_.

Felicity hasn’t kissed anyone in years -- what a _depressing_ realization that is -- and in almost any other circumstance, she’d be processing all of her conflicted feelings about that (desperate but also somehow amazing?) kiss for the next, oh, four or five months. But she left him all alone and hurt, and he’s relying on her to save his life, and that’s a lot of pressure.

She’s breathing hard, alternating between walking at a fast clip and taking the downhills at a slightly-out-of-control jog. She’s not a runner, and she’s trying to balance going _fast_  with not hitting a wall, energy-wise -- or pushing herself so far that her legs actually give out on her and she ends up sprawled on the ground. The last thing she needs is an injury herself. She will not let Oliver down.

God, she _hates_  it out here, where an injury can turn life-threatening so very quickly. She _hates_  not being able to dig out her phone and call 911. She _hates_ that Oliver’s life is in her hands, because she might not be certain what to call this connection she feels to him, but she knows for sure that she will not survive if she fails him.

It scares her to realize how much she needs him to be okay -- not simply because he’s another human being who’s made it this far in the after, and not just because he has a son and a sister and friends who depend on him. Felicity needs him to be okay for all of those reasons, _and_  because she apparently has feelings for him.

The kinds of feelings that an impossibly perfect kiss in the middle of hell made all too clear to her.

Strong feelings. Impractical and inconvenient feelings.

“Frak,” she says again, squinting into the distance when a spot of unusually bright green catches her eye. She focuses, then recognizes the color and the rectangular shape -- a street sign. _Finally_ , a street sign.

Hope swells in her chest, and she picks up her pace -- she needs to know where she is. She needs to know exactly how much farther so she can choose the quickest route. The green sign teases her, too far away for her to read, even with her glasses on, so she speeds up, ignoring her grumpy legs and her sore feet and the angry protest of her empty stomach.

_“THE GLADES - 5 MI”_

Felicity cries, actually _cries_  when she sees the sign and the intersection ahead and the arrow pointing to the right. Finally some actually information; some confirmation that she can do this. Now she knows exactly where to go and how long it’ll take to get there, and she _will_  fetch the others and go back for Oliver.

He _will_  be okay; he has to be.

At the intersection, Felicity tugs her extra pair of socks from her backpack and ties them to the sign, leaving a makeshift flag to be sure they won’t miss the turn later.

She makes good time the rest of the way, taking less than two hours to reach the familiar walls of Starling. Surging forward, she sees Laurel on guard duty and waves frantically. Even from this distance, she can see the relief in Laurel’s body language when she spots Felicity, and then Laurel is turning, gesturing to people below.

The next half hour passes in a strange, chaotic blur. She’s greeted at the gate by Iris and Quentin and Curtis, and the comforting news that Sara is okay and healing up with Nyssa as her overprotective nursemaid. Felicity gives an abbreviated version of the past twenty-four hours -- she skips the bed-sharing and the kissing, and doesn’t go into _how_ close they probably came to being murdered in their sleep when a bunch of jerks with crossbows wandered through the logging camp. Because, really, the urgent information is that Oliver is hurt and they need to go help him.

Roy appears, just before Thea comes running, demanding to know where her brother is. Felicity explains as best she can, waving off concerns for her own well-being, because, sure, she’s exhausted and she has blisters and she’s ravenous, but none of that is as important as getting back to Oliver.

She orders the others around. Get Paul. Prep the car. Get Diggle. “We need to go right now,” she repeats, frustrated that they’re still not _moving._

“Felicity, here, c’mon,” Quentin says kindly as he urges her to sit on a nearby bench and drink water. “You’re no good to him if you pass out.”

“No,” Felicity swings her desperate gaze from Quentin’s craggy face to Thea’s naked fear. “We need to _go_.”

“You need to get your blood sugar up,” Iris says, leaning closer. “C’mon, you love croissants.”

But Felicity can’t keep her eyes off of Thea. The younger girl has her arms wrapped tightly around her body, and she’s shaking her head, muttering something that sounds like, “Not again.” To Felicity’s surprise, it’s Roy who moves to comfort Thea -- he slings an arm around her shoulder and leads her away, tilting his head close to hers.

If Felicity had less on her mind, she’d find that development worthy of a follow up, but the most she can do right now is table it for later.

Numbly, Felicity rips pieces from the croissant in her hands and eats, her mind racing -- remembering the way Oliver grimaced when he slid down the tree to sit; the truly scary amount of blood soaking the leg of his cargo pants; the way he’d tried to say his _goodbyes_  to her, like he actually thought he might--

They’re wasting _time_. “Where is Paul?” she demands.

“Felicity!”

She jerks around to see Dig jogging up to her like an avenging angel. He’s in a black t-shirt, dark, worn jeans, and boots, with a grey leather jacket in one hand and a small duffel in the other. “Dig!” She tries to push herself up from the bench, but Iris stubbornly holds her in place. “We have to _go_!”

Diggle nods, crouching in front of her and taking her free hand in his. “You did great getting back here. Paul’s packing his bag and Tommy’s getting the car.” He squeezes her hand. “You need to tell us how to get to him.”

Felicity shakes her head. “I’m going with you.”

“You’ve done your part,” Dig argues. “You’ve run yourself ragged, and you need to rest up.” He lifts an eyebrow. “You need to eat something.”

“I am eating something.” She waggles the half-eaten croissant in his face and tips her chin up. “And I’ll rest when Oliver is back safe.”

Diggle holds her gaze for a long moment, evaluating her, and she is more than ready to out-stubborn him when he says, “Gonna be a tight fit in that little car with you, me, Paul, Tommy, and Oliver.”

“I’m small,” she counters, “and it’s a hatchback. We’ll be fine.” She’s practically vibrating, now, with her need to _go_ , to be doing something to save Oliver.

“Hey,” Dig says, his tone soft. “Oliver’s a pretty tough guy. If you told him to wait, he’ll be waiting for you. Okay?”

Before she can even try to come up with a response for that, Paul appears with Curtis on his heels. They head straight for Felicity, and she does not have the patience to be fussed over when Oliver is out there _waiting_. Using Diggle’s ridiculously broad shoulder, she pushes herself to her feet and takes three steps to meet Paul. “Are you ready?”

Paul scans her clinically. “As soon as I take a look at--”

“I’m fine,” she insists, turning to Curtis. “The car’s good, right?” It’s a reasonable question -- Starling has two cars and a pickup truck of varying quality. They very rarely use any of them, since gas is just about impossible to find anymore. And so they sit unused and mostly untouched between the outer walls and inner walls over on the west side of Starling, like those fire axes in public buildings -- _break glass in case of emergency_. The vehicles would get a lot of people out of Starling quickly, if it ever became necessary, but they each have less than a half tank of gas, so no one’s going very far.

Oliver’s only a few miles away, though, so this shouldn’t deplete their reserves too much -- as long as the car doesn’t break down.

Curtis gnaws his lip, but nods. “Yeah, it’ll be -- I’m sure it’s fine.” He’s nodding too much, a sure sign that he’s trying to convince himself as well as her. “Started up like a dream last check in.”

“Curtis!”

“Felicity, listen, if you’re not back in an hour, Roy and I will take the station wagon, okay?”

It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do. “Okay,” she agrees. “Let’s do this.”

The entire amassed group -- save Roy, who goes back up onto the watchtower to continue his shift -- drifts along behind Felicity, Diggle, and Paul as they walk over to the car. Tommy is waiting beside the driver’s door, practically bouncing with anxiety -- Felicity feels a strong kinship with him in that moment.

They pile into the car -- Tommy and Dig up front, and Felicity in the back with Paul, who’s already fussing over her before they’re even moving. She mostly ignores him as he cleans a few scratches on her face, neck, and hands with something stinging and astringent, but she gratefully accepts and gulps down the bottle of orange juice he hands her. She’s sitting way forward, peering out the windshield and looking for--

“There!” she yelps, leaning further so she can point out her tiny white socks swaying gently in the breeze. “Left here, and then he’ll be--”

She has to stop, her throat closing up with panic. What if he’s not there? What if she took too long? What if they’re too late?

Everything looks so different now that they’re whipping along between forty and fifty miles an hour. The hills seem flatter and less daunting, and she loses track of how much farther she remembers walking.

She’s about to give into the fear and despair -- _surely_  they should be there by now -- when movement off to the right catches Dig’s attention and then hers.

“Oliver!”

Tommy brakes hard, and Paul, Dig, and Felicity tumble out of the car towards Oliver, who’s trying to sit up straight, even though he’s weaker than when she left. Felicity stops short several feet from him when she sees that the ground beneath his injured leg is damp with blood.

She turns panicked eyes to Paul, but he’s already kneeling at Oliver’s side, fully focused on his patient even as he digs through his supplies.

“Okay, Oliver, I’m gonna get an IV started,” Paul says, “then look at your leg, and then we’re gonna get out of here, okay?”

“Sure,” Oliver answers tiredly, his eyelids at half-mast. Dig and Paul are working field medic magic, slicing the seam of Oliver’s pants open, packing and wrapping his wound, starting him on fluids. Tommy stands beside them, holding the IV bag aloft.

All Felicity can do is stand off to the side, glancing between their work and Oliver’s face. When her gaze finally collides with Oliver’s, she finds that she can’t look away.

It’s strangely intimate, the way they’re watching each other. She’s drinking in the sight of him, alive and relatively well, because her imagination has been torturing her since she left him alone out in the world. She doesn’t quite understand why he’s watching her with such a look of... what?

Gratitude?

Relief?

Affection?

She can’t read him.

Then he manages a smile and says, “I’m okay.”

Somehow, it breaks her paralysis and she storms over to him, dropping down to her knees beside him. He’s already reaching for her hand and she tangles their fingers together without hesitation. “You had _one_  job!” she scolds, her voice a little waterlogged. Belatedly, she realizes there are tears on her cheeks and swipes at them with her free hand. “You were supposed to stop bleeding, remember?”

Oliver tilts his head towards her, seemingly a bit more alert. “ _Two_  jobs,” he corrects, the edge of his lips quirking upwards in amusement. “I may have bled some more, but I am still here, just like you told me to be.”

Felicity wants _so badly_ to kiss him, because the stark reality of this _after_  is that he might not have still been here -- he could’ve bled out, or been attacked by jerks with crossbows, or been set upon by a horde. She’d left him alone and vulnerable, without knowing if he’d still be alive when she returned, and she is _so_  full of relief and thankfulness that he made it.

She’s actually tilting forward, falling into those stupidly blue eyes of his, when Paul does something to his leg that makes Oliver hiss with pain. Abruptly, Felicity remembers that they have quite an audience; when she looks up, Tommy is positively _smirking_  at her, and when Diggle glances at her, the edge of his mouth quirks in amusement.

Felicity flushes, reminding herself that it is _really_  not the time or the place for any of that.

“Sorry,” Dig says, shifting closer to Felicity, “but we’re gonna need to move him to the car now.”

“Oh!” Felicity nods, but before she can move, Oliver’s grip on her hand tightens. She pauses, frowning at him in confusion. “Are you in pain? What’s wrong?” Her free hand flutters up to his face without her permission, smoothing the sweat from his brown and tracing the side of his face.

He shakes his head, tilting it to rest more firmly against her hand. His eyes are bright, but he looks even more exhausted than he did before. His fingers slacken in her hand as he mumbles, “Thanks for coming back for me.”

Mindful of Dig and Paul and Tommy, she gives him a simple nod and says, “Always.”

The others stand silent, not interrupting the long moment that Felicity and Oliver just watch each other. It’s not until he grimaces again that Felicity releases his hand and pushes herself to her feet.

Tommy, Diggle, and Paul carry Oliver to the car, sliding him carefully into the backseat. He’s so ginormous that it’s a close call to get them all in there with him -- Tommy drives, and Diggle and his huge shoulders sit up front, leaving Paul and Felicity to squeeze into the back with Oliver.

Which is how Felicity ends up passing the ride back to Starling with Oliver half-lying in her lap, sliding her fingers through his hair as he drifts off to sleep. She studies his face, slack and pale, but so, so beautiful, and realizes she’s in trouble.

Because you’re not supposed to fall for someone during the apocalypse, right?

“Frak,” she mutters to herself.

& & &

Oliver wakes to a dull, throbbing ache in his thigh, and his son sprawled on the bed beside him, snoring. Blinking himself into alertness, Oliver pushes up onto his elbows, feeling unnaturally groggy. He rarely sleeps well or deeply, and so it takes longer than normal to shake off the lethargy, leaving him feeling a little disoriented.

“Oh!” Thea says from the door. “You’re awake!” She barrels into the room, then notices William’s still asleep and moves quietly to the edge of the bed. “You feeling okay?”

He shifts his legs, wincing at the soreness from inactivity plus the wrenching of his injury. “Sure,” he answers, levering himself to a seated position and pulling himself back to lean against the headboard. He pauses, checking to make sure William doesn’t wake, but the kid can sleep through nearly anything -- it both worries Oliver, and leaves him envious because it’s a talent Oliver lacks.

“You’ve been out for _hours_ ,” Thea tells him, settling onto the foot of the bed and tucking her feet beneath her. Oliver remembers a hundred mornings like this when he was a hungover teenager, when tiny, exuberant Thea would bounce into his room and talk his ear off until he agreed to go downstairs for breakfast. His heart aches for the simplicity of _before_. And then Thea -- grown up, self-possessed, determined, _brave_  Thea -- leans forward and taps his good leg. “Ollie? Do you need me to get Paul?”

“I’m fine,” he dismisses her concern. “How’s Felicity?” Because somehow, he’d thought she’d be here when he woke. In the cold light of day, it’s irrational -- particularly considering how quickly she’d taken off after they’d kissed. But he remembers the look on her face when they’d found him, the way she’d gazed at him and held his hand, the feel of her fingers along his face when he half-collapsed on her in the backseat of that car. He _definitely_  remembers the way she’d pressed herself closer when she’d kissed him.

All of that made it seem to Oliver like she would be there beside him when he woke up.

There’s an anguished pang in his chest when he considers that maybe he’s misjudged things. Her absence could simply be a sign of her disinterest, but Oliver is enough of a pessimist to wonder if she’s okay. He has learned some hard lessons the past three years, and he can’t help but consider worst case scenarios. “Is she okay?”

Thea’s expression is strange -- a cross between amusement and something he can’t quite identify. “She’s probably sleeping. It’s barely 6 in the morning.”

Oliver jerks his gaze over to the window in surprise, taking in the early morning angle of the sunbeams. He’d slept through the night? The realization suddenly makes him aware of his full bladder. “Oh,” he manages, quietly. He shifts, groaning as he swings his legs over the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Thea demands, eyes wide. “Let me get Paul.”

“I need the bathroom, Thea,” he tells her, using the headboard to steady himself as he stands. “Not a doctor.” His thigh throbs and aches in protest, but he even with the pain, he feels a lot better than yesterday. There’s a bandaid in the crook of his arm, suggesting they’d given him IV fluids and possibly painkillers. That plus the hours of rest plus getting his wound to stop bleeding has helped his state immensely.

He shifts his weight, perfectly willing to endure the painful few steps to and from the bathroom.

“Dad?”

Oliver pauses, half-turning back to his son, who’s watching him with a downturned mouth. “It’s okay, William. I’ll be right back.”

But William scrambles up, walking across the mattress to throw himself against his father’s chest in a messy, desperate hug. Oliver lets go of the headboard to wrap his son up. “Hey, hey,” he says, running a hand up and down William’s back. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“I thought you were gone like before,” William says, sniffling into his shoulder, and Oliver stiffens, remembering his months of captivity -- the torture, the failed escape attempts, all of it. When he’d finally gotten back to his family with a traumatized Helena in tow, he’d been laser focused on protecting his people, on getting them as far away from those sadistic assholes as possible to really notice how his absence had affected the rest of them. After all, Thea and William and Tommy had spent those months safe at the cabin with Diggle and Lyla and baby Sola.

It’s obvious to Oliver now that the little boy who’d so recently lost his mother would _of course_  be scarred by his father going missing for months on end. He squeezes his son closer, pressing a kiss to his hair. “William,” he says, leaning back a bit. William blinks up at him, his soft brown eyes brimming with tears. “Do you remember what I told you at the cabin?” William nods. “I will _always_  do whatever I have to so that I can get back to you and protect you,” Oliver vows. “Okay?”

William nods again, a little more confidently. “Are we going to stay here like the cabin?” he asks.

Oliver’s gaze shifts to Thea. She’s watching him curiously; he already knows where she stands on the topic and it’s clear she’s eager to hear his opinion. “I’m not sure,” Oliver admits. He can’t deny that his long-standing refusal to even consider staying in one place has at least partially eroded in the face of Starling’s relative safety. But he is still more than a little concerned about getting too comfortable, about letting his guard down. Starling is reasonably safe, but nowhere is _actually_  safe. The Starlingers aren’t his people, not really, but Oliver can’t deny that he feels the need to help them, to protect this enclave they’ve built.

And selfishly, he doesn’t want to leave Felicity. She’s brave and smart and beautiful, and something about her has got him wound up in knots.

“I like it here,” William says, and the animation in his face is such a relief for Oliver to see. “There are toys, and Aunt Thea and I met a girl named Aisha and she’s my friend now. We played superheros.”

His son's innocent enthusiasm hits Oliver hard. William has had to be so strong, so mature, and he’s responded well. But he’s still a little boy. What kind of childhood is it always being on the run, always being in danger? The closest thing William’s had to toys the past few years is the knife he carries.

“Do you want to stay here?” Oliver asks, but his son simply shrugs, refusing to meet his gaze. Oliver pats his back gently. “You can tell me the truth, William. If we do decide to stay here for a while, I want us to all be sure of the decision.”

Shyly, William looks up at him. “I want us to live here with Aunt Thea and Uncle Tommy and Aisha and Sola and Felicity.”

Thea chuckles and Oliver looks over, asking the question without words. Thea gives him an impish look. “Seems like your son shares your newly refined taste in women, Ollie. Felicity stopped by last night, and she and William had a rousing game of chess.”

“You play chess, buddy?” Oliver asks, honestly surprised. There’s an expansive warmth in his chest at the mental image of Felicity and his son huddled over a chessboard.

William shrugs. “I used to play with Grammy,” he explains, and Oliver regrets, again, how much his son lost before they even met. Oliver never knew Samantha’s parents, and can provide no help when William’s memories of them start to fade. Before he can come up with anything to say, William grins and adds, “Felicity reminded me how to play. She’s nice.”

“She is,” Oliver agrees absently. “She’s the best.”

“The best?” Thea echoes, sounding positively delighted. “Care to elaborate, brother dear?”

Oliver’s face flushes. “She’s built something pretty impressive,” he answers. It’s true enough, but has very little to do with why he finds her so captivating.

William’s face lights up as he stands there on the bed, his hands on Oliver’s shoulders. “Does that mean we can stay?”

“I’m not sure yet, buddy,” Oliver admits. Because they’re guests, and he doesn’t know exactly what the expectation is for the length of their stay. “I need to talk to Felicity about our options.”

“She said she’d be back today!” William tells him excitedly. “For more chess!”

“And,” Thea adds with a knowing grin, “to check on _you_ , Ollie.”

There’s a flutter of nervousness in the pit of his stomach when he asks, “Did she say when she’d be here?”

Thea’s smile widens until she’s basically beaming at him. “Wow, you’ve got it bad, Ollie.”

William’s brow furrows as he looks back and forth between Oliver and Thea. “Got what?”

“Nothing,” Oliver answers quickly, silencing Thea with a look. His sister smirks back at him, unrepentant.

“She didn’t set an appointment or anything,” Thea drawls, “but you should _definitely_  shower because you’re kind of ripe.”

Oliver glowers at her, but relents after a moment. “Would you keep an eye on him?” he asks. When Thea agrees, Oliver grabs clean clothes and heads for the shower.

& & &

Felicity spends her morning cleaning.

She’s not avoiding anything at all, she just really needs to give her house a good, brisk once over with a broom and a mop.

Then she scrubs the tub and the toilet and the sink. When she’s done with that, she starts on her laundry -- _all_  her laundry. Although they have electricity, the Starlingers generally do dishes and laundry by hand, mindful of the unnecessary use of their limited electrical resources. And she’s learned that hand-washing her clothes is _great_  way to use up some of her nervous energy.

By noon, the vast majority of her clothes are drip-drying out back, so she takes a warm shower. It’s only once she steps out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel that she realizes her over-exuberance has left her with very few clothing options for the foreseeable future.

“Frak,” she mutters, glaring at the apocalypse-impractical flouncy red skirt hanging abandoned in her closet. Well, it’s that skirt and the black tank top with the hole along the side seam, or the crumpled, damp clothes she’d worn to clean the bathroom. So.

Fifteen minutes later, she’s feeling a lot overdressed and a little nervous as she contemplates the very long walk across the street to check up on Oliver. She has no idea what she’s supposed to say to him. _Sorry I kissed you while you were super-sure you were about to die_?

Worse, what if he doesn’t say anything about it? What if she gets there and he’s Mr. Grumpy Pants again, with no sign of the kind, empathetic man who held her close until her panic passed?

“Well, too bad,” she decides, taking a moment to pinch her cheeks and apply some of the last of her tinted lip gloss. God, she misses lipstick; she’d learned young how to use makeup as a shield, as a way to bolster her self-confidence. As she pushes her front door open and tilts her chin up, she feels oddly defenseless, like her every thought and feeling is visible on her naked face.

She doesn’t see anyone as she walks down her driveway, across the street, and up the Queen family’s driveway, but it _feels_  like a thousand eyes are on her. Stubbornly, she walks up the steps and knocks briskly.

A few long, nerve-wracking moments later, Thea answers, curiosity morphing into a pleased smile. “Felicity, hi! Come on in.” She steps back, ushering Felicity into the living room. “Both the Queen boys are eager to see you. But I wanted to thank you first.”

“You’re welcome,” Felicity answers automatically. Then she frowns. “Wait, thank me for what?”

Thea hooks a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the stairs and, presumably, Oliver in a room somewhere on the second floor. “For bringing my brother back in one piece.” Her kind smile slips a bit. “It hasn’t always been that easy to get him back.”

Before Felicity can ask what _that’s_  supposed to mean, William thunders down the stairs and skids to a stop right in front of Felicity. He smiles up at her. “Hi, Felicity.”

“Hi, William,” she greets him with a smile. “How’s your dad?”

The boy shrugs. “His leg hurts and he’s grumpy ‘cause Dr. Paul says he has to stay in bed for a week.”

Felicity glances to Thea for confirmation, and the other woman nods. “Paul came by about an hour ago.” She wrinkles her nose, admitting, “Ollie didn’t take the _bed rest_ idea particularly well.”

“Oh.” Felicity thinks about all the other house-stuff she didn’t do today. Like yardwork. Or weeding the vegetable gardens. Important stuff, and she should really do that. Probably she should do that now. “Maybe I should come back later or--”

“No!” Thea yelps. “Wait, no.” She touches Felicity’s arm. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you.” But there’s something odd or forced in her expression when she nods.

Apprehensive, Felicity shifts her attention to William, who’s staring up at her. “Will you play with me?”

Felicity grins at him, feeling a rush of protective affection for this boy who’s been growing up in the middle of the apocalypse. He’s already a bit more open, more playful than when she’d first met him, and the change warms her heart. “Of course,” she agrees, ruffling his hair.

“But first,” Thea says, looping an arm around William’s shoulders, “William and I will go out back for a bit while you and Oliver catch up.” In case that isn’t clear enough, Thea tips her head towards the staircase, and lifts her eyebrows expectantly.

“Oh.” Felicity glances down at William, who looks crestfallen. She crouches carefully, gathering her skirt around her legs. “After I check on your dad, do you think you’re up for a chess rematch?”

“Yes!” William turns to look up at his aunt. “When we go outside, can we practice shooting?”

Felicity pops upright. “Shooting?”

“Archery,” Thea explains. “Not guns.”

“Oh.” Felicity nods, her instinctual objections somewhat appeased. “Good then.”

“Let’s go, mister,” Thea tells William, pointing him toward the back door. She glances back at Felicity with a warm smile. “Take your time. Oliver’s upstairs, first bedroom on the left.”

“Thanks,” Felicity answers quietly, nerves blossoming in her chest. She hesitates at the bottom of the stairs for a long moment, then tells herself she’s being stupid. It still takes her another few seconds and a calming breath to start moving. There’s an undercurrent of excitement to see Oliver bubbling under the free-floating anxiety, leaving her a jumbled mess of nerves.

The house is a study in impersonal neutrals -- off-white walls, bland beige carpeting, and empty walls. She’s pretty sure this place had been unoccupied when the world ended, and no one’s lived here long enough to make an effort since. She suppresses her hope that just maybe the Queen family will be here long enough to add some personal touches. Like, say, bow and arrow artwork.

She huffs a nervous laugh at her own strange thoughts, her pace slowing as she approaches Oliver’s room. The door is ajar, but Felicity still knocks lightly.

“Come in,” Oliver’s familiar voice answers.

With a shaking hand, Felicity pushes the door open and steps inside. It’s not a large room -- there’s the bed, plus two bureaus along the far wall, and what looks to be a kitchen chair incongruously parked near one of the nightstands. Like the rest of the house, it’s boring neutral greys and browns, except for the warm, gorgeous, flesh-and-blood man on the bed with the unfairly blue eyes.

Oliver is propped up against the headrest, wearing a white t-shirt and -- _God_  -- boxer-briefs. She tries very hard not to choke on her tongue. Or stare inappropriately. His heavily bandaged thigh draws her attention, and she asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Better today,” he answers, watching her carefully. He lifts a hand towards her. “Come here?”

Flushing, Felicity moves closer and drops into the chair. As she sits, she smooths down her skirt and says, “It’s laundry day.” Off of Oliver’s puzzled look, she adds, “It’s just I’m not trying to--” She stops, reconsiders-- “I don’t normally wear flouncy skirts. Well, I mean, I _did_  normally wear them, because they’re fun and flirty and I love bright colors. And,” she adds, warming to her theme, “stuffy old white guys who didn’t know how to handle women who are smarter than them found me even _more_  confusing when I floated in as a riot of color and a cloud of this, like, really great perfume. My favorite had this zippy citrus-y undertone. I really miss perfume. But,” she continues, shaking her head to snap herself out of the unhelpful reminiscing, “that was _before_ , you know? Now I’m much more of a practical pants person. Drab colors. Camouflage. So this,” she continues, plucking at the bright red fabric with nervous fingers, “is because the rest of my clothes are drying, and I can’t very well go naked.” Her cheeks burn and she shakes her head. “Sorry, I--”

A rusty chuckle interrupts her. Stunned, Felicity looks up to find Oliver... _laughing_. It’s the last thing she expected -- he’s been stoic and angry and protective and grumpy since she met him, and it hadn’t really occurred to her that he _could_  laugh. But he’s watching her with dancing eyes and an adorable smile as he laughs, and it’s so perfect that she doesn’t even care that he’s laughing at her.

His grin softens, and he holds her gaze with those eyes of his. “You’re remarkable,” he tells her. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before, Felicity.”

She studies him, trying to understand where this is coming from, this softer, more open version of this man who’s become so important to her in so short a time. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” he answers, reaching his hand across the mattress for her. When she just stares at his hand, he wiggles his fingers. Cautiously, curiously, she shifts in the uncomfortable chair, leaning closer to the bed and placing her hand in his. He tangles their fingers together, squeezing gently. “Thank you for saving me.”

Her gaze snaps to his. She’s barely breathing, focusing all of her attention on figuring out what’s happening between them right now. “You saved me first,” she tells him quietly. It’s supposed to be about the cannibals, about getting her and the others back to Starling safely, but it comes out feeling... _weightier_  than that. Felicity presses her lips together, uncertain.

“Felicity, can I ask you something?” Oliver’s grip on her hand remains warm and strong and so strangely comforting. Isn’t she supposed to be soothing him? He’s the one with the injury. But it feels to her like his palm against hers is the only thing keeping her grounded right now.

“Of course,” she manages, bracing herself for a question about their kiss, or her super-obvious crush on him. She’s an adult -- she can answer truthfully and accept whatever response she gets. She’s almost _sure_  she can.

And then Oliver asks, “How safe is Starling?”

Felicity blinks, startled. She was... not expecting that line of questioning. “Pretty safe. Why?”

“I don’t mean from walkers,” he explains. “A big enough horde could take anyplace out, and Starling’s no exception. I mean from the living. How sure are you that someone like Isabel won’t come back and--”

“Oliver,” she interrupts, exasperated. “I told you before, Starling accepts everyone who wants to live here. There’s no incentive to--”

“Of _course_  there is,” he interrupts, but now Felicity can recognize his frustration as a manifestation of his fear, even though she would have mistaken it for blustery anger just days ago. “I think something’s coming, Felicity.”

She’s shaking her head, instinctively denying what he’s telling her. But part of her brain starts working the problem, considering the angles. She knows he’s experienced much worse than she has. She knows the world outside the walls of Starling can be crueler and more brutal than she’d like to entertain. Could that really lead someone to attack them? To try to take what they’ve built and leave them outside in the wilderness?

She thinks back to Isabel’s appearance a few months ago, and she re-examines her memories. Isabel had been particularly interested in Starling’s defenses. Felicity had assumed whatever horrors Isabel had faced before arriving at Starling had left her scarred and scared and wanting to be extra sure she was safe. But thinking back, Felicity can’t deny that that type of curiosity and research could also be opposition research -- casing Starling for weaknesses and opportunities.

Felicity’s stomach churns at the thought. Does she need to doubt everyone who shows up asking for shelter? Does she need to screen people who show up at their gates on the off-chance they’ve got impure motives?

Does she really want to live that way, seeing her fellow humans as threats first?

“Felicity?” Oliver prompts.

She startles out of her thoughts and meets his gaze, and sees the moment he recognizes her new perspective.

“I hope I’m wrong,” he tells her quietly. His expression is serious and calm, his empathy clear in his voice. “I really do. But -- in case I’m right, I would...” He trails off, shifting a little uncomfortably.

“Oliver?” she prompts.

“You’ve created an amazing place, Felicity,” he says, his tone measured. “And I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to it. So if-- just in case there’s something coming, I would very much like to stay and help keep Starling safe.”

Felicity stares at him, processing what he’s saying and what he’s left unsaid. “You want to stay here,” she repeats flatly.

He dips his chin in acknowledgement. “For a while, at least.” He licks his lips nervously, like he’s searching for something else to say, someway to convince her. He looks like he’s expecting her to refuse him.

Felicity studies him. “And you want to stay to keep Starling safe,” she repeats, prodding, seeking something else from him.

“Yes,” he answers. “I want to keep Starling and its inhabitants safe. I think I could -- I think _we_ could help with that. Dig and Lyla and I can teach fighting skills, defensive tactics.”

She tilts her head. “That’s a very logical reason,” she observes, trying to mask her disappointment. She’d hoped he would say he wants to stay for less logical reasons. Some small, silly part of her wants him to stay _for her_ , even though she knows that’s crazy and irrational. She would’ve happily accepted his desire to stay for safety and camaraderie and the possibility of adding to his small group of friends.

Oliver looks down, the hint of a smile on his lips. “William likes it here,” he adds quietly. “And Thea.”

Felicity thinks very carefully about what she wants to say to him, about what she wants to ask. “And what about you, Oliver?” she asks, her voice quiet but certain. “Do you like it here?”

He holds her gaze, resolute. “I like it very much.” His grip on her tightens, and the strange mask that had come over his features falls away, leaving those bright expressive eyes watching her with open affection. “ _Very_  much.”

Felicity knows what he means, what he’s trying to say. She knows there’s something between them -- something that might be stronger on her side than his, but that is undeniably _there_. She knows Starling may just be a chance for him to heal, for his group to rest up. And she knows he may leave in a few weeks or a few months.

She can already tell how much that will hurt if it happens.

But she also knows this: “I think you should stay.”

Felicity holds her breath, awaiting his reaction. And then Oliver smiles at her, his eyes crinkling in joy. Maybe she’ll regret this someday, but right now, she is happy. Because he squeezes her hand and says, “Then we’ll stay.”

It takes her a moment to register the pressure on her hand, the way he’s urging her wordlessly to come sit with him on the bed. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, she moves to sit beside him, her bright red skirt a ridiculous contrast to his dark grey boxer-briefs, their hands tangled together on the mattress between them.

There are a few inches between them, but she is overly aware of him beside her.

“Felicity,” he murmurs.

When she turns her head, he’s _right there_ , his bright blue eyes burning into her. He leans closer, but just like yesterday in the woods, he leaves the decision up to her. Felicity tilts closer and presses her lips to his.

This kiss is slower, more chaste; they take small tastes of each other, a gentle give and take before easing back. Felicity is still nervous, still shaking a bit, but she is also strangely _comfortable_  here beside him. Like this is the place she’d like to be, maybe even the place she’s supposed to be.

And, yes, maybe Isabel or the crossbow-wielding jerks or an impossibly large horde will disrupt everything tomorrow, but for now? For this moment?

This new possibility is enough.

 

END VOLUME ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE ON VOLUME TWO: The second volume of this story will address some of the issues and characters that cropped up in more detail, as well as continue to explore the tentative relationship between Oliver and Felicity in more detail. I hope you’ll come along for the journey. :)


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